The true importance of the June 7 elections has less to do with the contest between Hariri and Nasrallah, or the formal balance of power inside Lebanon, than it does with the increasingly tense struggle between the two main power groupings in the Middle East: the alliance of America's regional clients that includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel; and the Iranian-Syrian axis whose push for a bigger share of political power in Lebanon was ratified by last year's Doha agreement. The formal power-sharing arrangement reached by the Lebanese in Doha can be understood as the product of a political stalemate that resulted from a Syrian campaign of assassination and a failed attempt by the U. S.-backed government to counter Hezbollah's weapons by extending the power of the state. The Doha agreement granted Hezbollah and its allies a "blocking third" in the cabinet, which allowed the Party of God to veto any decisions of the Lebanese government with which it did not agree--like taking Hezbollah's cameras out of the airport, or shutting down the party's private communications network, or controlling the country's borders with Syria so that Iranian missiles cannot continue to enter southern Lebanon.
There are two likely outcomes in the upcoming election--a narrow Hezbollah loss or a narrow Hezbollah win. A narrow loss will ratify the veto power granted to the party in Doha. A narrow win will give Hezbollah formal political control over the Lebanese state. Either way, the election will provide very public evidence of the declining influence of the United States in Lebanon and the growing power of Iran. In the new Middle East, Tehran--armed with the strategic insulation that nuclear weapons confer--will be able to destabilize any government it doesn't like without fear of military reprisal. As nearby regimes weigh the pros and cons of life inside the nuclear cage with the Iranian tiger, Lebanon offers a preview of what the future might be like.
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