Snoopy noted a Bradley Burston column in the wake of Israel’s war with Hezbollah in 2006 in which Burston wrote (the link to Ha’aretz has expired):
When this war is over and Israel’s troops are gone from Lebanon, and when the rage at Israel begins to subside, it will be Nasrallah’s turn – like Nasser’s four decades ago – to answer to fellow Arabs for his actions.
I was dismissive, as it appeared that Hezbollah had no intention of keeping its side of the deal – and it didn’t. I was also dismissive because Thomas Friedman had made a very similar point in “The morning after the morning after.”
On the morning after the morning after, Lebanese war refugees, who had real jobs and homes, will start streaming back by the hundreds of thousands, many of them Shiites. Tragically, they will find their homes or businesses badly damaged or obliterated. Yes, they will curse Israel. But they and other Arabs will also start asking Nasrallah publicly what many are already asking privately:
“What was this war all about? What did we get from this and at what price? Israel has some roofs to repair and some dead to bury. But its economy and state are fully intact, and it will recover quickly. We Lebanese have been set back by a decade. Our economy and our democracy lie in ruins, like our homes. For what? For a one-week boost in ‘Arab honor?’ So that Iran could distract the world’s attention from its nuclear program? You did all this to us for another country?”
(Not a surprising sentiment since Hezbollah wasn’t founded to fight Israel as much as it was to create an Islamic state in Lebanon.)
Frankly, I thought that Friedman was trying to be too cute, but he seems to be somewhat on target in this case. As the Washington Post reported the other day.
But the events of the past few years, voters said, made the campaign a broad referendum on Hezbollah. The group’s militia in 2008 briefly seized control of downtown Beirut in a bid to boost Hezbollah’s political power, a move reminiscent of the country’s 15-year civil war. And Hezbollah’s 2006 war with Israel was cited by some voters as showing the danger of allowing the group to keep its arms stockpiles.
What are some of the other factors leading to Hezbollah’s defeat? Now, Thomas Friedman even gives some credit to ex-President Bush.
While the Lebanese deserve 95 percent of the credit for this election, 5 percent goes to two U.S. presidents. As more than one Lebanese whispered to me: Without George Bush standing up to the Syrians in 2005 — and forcing them to get out of Lebanon after the Hariri killing — this free election would not have happened. Mr. Bush helped create the space. Power matters. Mr. Obama helped stir the hope. Words also matter.
“People in this region have become so jaded by the ability of their states to dominate everything and hold sham elections,†said Paul Salem, analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “And mostly the world never cared. And then here came this man [Obama], who came to them with respect, speaking these deep values about their identity and dignity and economic progress and education, and this person indicated that this little prison that people are living in here was not the whole world. That change was possible.â€
As I mentioned before I wonder if President Obama’s speech spurred Christians to vote in greater numbers, realizing that he was reaching out too much to the likes of Hezbollah. (I was happy to see that Michael Ledeen feels the same way.
My thinking is more along the lines of the editors of the Wall Street Journal:
This being Lebanon, talks on building a governing coalition are bound to be difficult. But in the bigger picture, this election marks a step forward since the 2005 Cedar Revolution ended the Syrian occupation. And it’s a vindication of America’s policy of democracy promotion. In Pakistan, Turkey, Iraq and now Lebanon, extremist Muslim parties didn’t fare as well as feared at reasonably free polls, and often lost ground. The outcome in Lebanon is another good reason for the Obama Administration to make democracy a priority of its so-called new relationship with the Muslim world — even if George W. Bush also happened to think it was a good idea.
Democracy promotion was decidedly not a part of President Obama’s Cairo speech.
The usually frivolous Dion Nissenbaum recalls another incident that may have hurt Hezbollah.
At the end of the day, in the battle between the pro-Western March 14 coalition and the Iran-backed March 8 rivals, the date that may have mattered more was May 7th.
That was the day last year when Hezbollah fighters easily stormed through West Beirut in a military takeover that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah later called “a glorious day.”
What Nasrallah touted as a great day many Lebanese voters saw as a betrayal.
While Sunday’s election doesn’t signal an end to the Hezbollah threat, it is a welcome development.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
