When the Sunni-led “March 14” political alliance won Lebanon’s tightly-contested parliamentary elections in June, many politicians and pundits warned that a failure by the incoming prime minister, Saad Hariri, to quickly broker a compromise with the Hizbollah-led opposition could return Lebanon to the sectarian violence that almost sent the country back to civil war in 2008.
Although a government has yet to materialise after more than three months of often bitter debates, there has been no violence, as both Mr Hariri and the Hizbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, have avoided troublesome rhetoric even as their talks have repeatedly failed to broker an agreement.
As perhaps the single most powerful person in Lebanon, Mr Nasrallah has far more tools for pressuring the majority into concessions, ranging from a military power that far exceeds even the Lebanese army, to the ability to send hundreds of thousands of devoted supporters to the streets in protest within a few hours. But instead, Mr Nasrallah appears to be content to let the talks progress, while using conciliatory language towards his political enemies.
Even with Mr Hariri’s resignation two weeks ago after failing to deliver a government because of a dispute with Hizbollah’s only major Christian ally, Michel Aoun, over control of the critical telecommunications ministry, Mr Nasrallah dampened expectations that a return to the violence of 2006 to 2008 was imminent.
