Cole in Salon: Did Obama Win the Lebanese Election?
My column is out in Salon.com: Obama wins an election in the Middle East: Lebanon's voters gave the White House the victory it wanted -- with a lot of help from Hezbollah.
Excerpt:
' Whatever the size of Obama's influence, the election has already had a direct impact of the future of Arab-Israeli negotiations and on the realization of U.S. aims in the region. A Hezbollah win would have strengthened the case made by the right-wing Israeli Likud Party that Iran and its proxies are a higher priority for Israel's foreign policy than trying to restart the peace process with the Palestinians. For Americans and the rest of the world, the Lebanese elections were about whether Iran would be strengthened or weakened in the Levant, and whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have a new pretext for intransigence. The answer to both questions was a resounding no.'
Read the whole thing.
End/ (Not Continued)
Cont'd (click below or on "comments")
posted by Juan Cole @ 6/10/2009 12:54:00 AM
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11 Comments:
My whole problem with the 'Obama speech as electoral assistant for M14' is that many wonks aren't citing the situation fairly.
Wasn't his speech aimed directly at (not only) the Muslim world but also at Muslims qua Muslims? Yes? Good. Didn't the Lebanese elections turn out the particular result because of the choices of Lebanese Christians? Sunnis, Shi'a, Druz, and everyone else already had their votes decided for them and we knew what those votes would look like. The Christians were the only main variable.
So is there a subtextual reading of Obama's speech that was overwhelmingly directed at my Christian friends who gave Aoun's FRM a resounding 'no' ? If not, then why does NYT and everyone like to say that the Obama admin got a desired outcome in the Lebanese elections that was significantly related to his speech? Or is journalism that inept in this day and age...
-Tired of Tropes
Peace will come in the middle east only when Israel is forced by the USA to accept the world consensus that Israel must return to their pre 1967 borders this is the core of the Saudi offer & UNSC Resolution 242. Both Hizboulah & Iran agree to accept the Palestinians right to negotiate a deal. They will accept a deal based on these terms.
Weather Obama will apply the needed pressure is the question, not the make up of Lebanon's Government.
The U.S. had a lot less to do with this election than your headline suggests. The vast majority of Lebanese had decided their vote long before Clinton, Biden and Obama made their speeches. The election had little to do with the U.S. and a lot to do with internal and regional politics.
March 14 did win by the rules, despite a widespread expectation that Hezbollah's coalition would either win or come very close to winning, so there has been a swing on some level away from Hezbollah.
On the other hand, if it is true, and I have not seen it contested, that notwithstanding Lebanon's skewed religious-based seat allocation system, March 8 got over 54% of the popular vote while March 14 got less than 45% then this electoral distortion is another key story of the election.
Hezbollah's allies won 54% of the vote and got around 45% of the seats. The US-leaning coalition won 44% of the votes and got around 55% of the seats.
These numbers are likely further skewed by the fact that campaigning was more intense in the over-represented Christian communities whose votes were more in doubt than Hezbollah's safe Shiite districts.
It would also seem unreasonable to deny Hezbollah's allies, who received more votes than their opponents, a veto on national policy based on these election results.
The Lebanese elections, in my view, had nothing to do with Iran. The US sought to make it a big show but in reality it was not a defeat of Hezbollah who won every seat that they competed for, nor Iran who didn't run. Hezbollah did not loose any seats even though other ... Read Moreparties may have gained. This attempt to stage the Lebanese elections as a commentary on Iran and Hezbollah probably plays good here in the US and among pro-Israel and anti-Islam interests, but to those who know the truth, we realize that nothing has really changed and that Hezbollah is still a force to be respected both militarily and politically. The US and Israel should not misread, or underestimate the meaning of those important facts. The US really should stop this heavy handed overreaching into the politics of ME governments. I don't think it's in our long term interest.
No way. I'm repulsed by the meme that Obama won the election for 3/14. It's U.S.-Centric and ignorant of the local issues that Lebanese voters were really voting about.
- Inkan1969
Nice way to 'propel the propaganda', Juan. The Lebanese election wasn't centrally about Hezbollah. It was primarily about Christian privilege and the anti-democratic side 'won', predictably, and - equally predictably - Obama supported the anti-democratic side. But ole Juan Cole doesn't see fit to point that out? Might not reflect well on The One?
And then there's the intersting hypocrisy of Obama. In Cairo he declares that one nation should try to dictate to other nations how they govern themselves, yet he sends Biden to try to do exactly that in Lebanon. I think Juan Cole did point that out, but it seems to be water under the bridge, now? Bush hypocrisy matters. but Obama hypocrisy doesn't?
And then there's the horse that simply MUST be flogged by every ObamaBot; the laughable idea that any expansion of Iranian influence is a THREAT TO THE UNIVERSE!!! This is a permuation of Obama's unspoken doctrine that only allies of the US may be allowed to expand influence and that all others - including Russia - must be contained and - hopefully- crushed into obedience. This is the exact same doctrine that Bush pronounced, only Bush was candid enough to state it openly - 'every nation is either for us or against us' - and please don't argue that it makes a difference that Obama claims that he prefers diplomacy to military attack. That only means that Obama believes in the power of Threat - and so did Bush.
The point should be that Netanyahu has no right to hype Iran as a threat. It would be harder for him to hype Iran that way if Obama didn't constantly hype Iran that way. The election in Lebanon has nothing to do with this, except in that it gratifies the Obamian Imperial desire to have another proxy government on its leash.
And no, I don't particularly admire or advocate for Hezbollah. Shooting rockets at civilians is wrong, whether Hezbollah or Israel does it.
Why make the Lebanese election about Israel? It's about Lebanon first and foremost. Secondarily it's about the panalopy of foreigners meddling in Lebanon, which includes Israel but also very much Syria and Iran, for their own sakes and independent of Israel. There are seismic shifts on sectarian representation being formalized after years of de facto changes, and each group is negotiating its place in the new pecking order. This foreign focus is a bit colonial.
The Israelis said that Saddam was an obstacle to peace with Palestinians. Get rid of Saddam and peace will ensue, they said.
Saddam fell. That changed nothing.
Now they're saying Iran and the Hezbollah are obstacles to peace.
Let us imagine that these alleged obstacles were removed. What would that change? Would Israelis have a change of heart and deal with Palestinians in a fair manner?
Iran has stated repeatedly that it will accept a settlement between Palestinians and Israelis. If Israel is serious about making peace, it needs to reach a settlement with Palestinians. When that happens, Iran and Israel will not have any reason to be enemies, although the bad taste of past hostility will linger for a while.
We are all missing the point on a global scale. Capitalism polarizes wealth in the absence of radical intervention. Poor people now reproduce faster than rich people. Poor people are much more likely to be non-white and non-Christian.
As long as real elections exist, more and more poor people will vote. Most of the world's 6.5 billion people live in a state that we would consider bare surival. If their leftist movements are destroyed by various means, they will turn to other forms of extremism, because the global economic system is now as unjust as we have ever seen. They will keep voting against "us" until we kill them, reimpose tyrants, or radically redistribute our wealth.
Hezbollah will not go away unless replaced by a leftist revival. It will not survive unless it delivers economic justice against the wishes of Wall Street. Narrow-minded tribalist movements that pit one group of the poor against another can only be replaced by class movements.
Liberals don't really want to share power with the global poor. They hate Hezbollah, but they hate leftist Latin America too. Just as the Bushists cheered every tiny turn in their favor as proof that they were going to conquer the world, only to be swept away by the disaster they created, liberals are so focused on individual defeats of radical populists that they don't see they're only plugging leaks in a dam collapsing under the weight of more and more people failed by corporate capitalism.
Demographics are destiny.
Very shallow piece of analysis, especially considering the Opposition actually won the popular vote.
For a better appraisal of the dynamics, the following articles are far more dense in substance:
- http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/opinion/?id=32699
- http://www.counterpunch.org/amin06122009.html
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