One week after President Obama reached out to the Muslim world and offered a major shift in America’s Middle East policy, the Western-backed coalition in Lebanon scored a surprise election win over Hezbollah.
Analysts in the region were sceptical that Mr Obama’s speech last week in Cairo would tip the balance in Lebanon’s hotly disputed poll — the closest-run campaign in three decades — or in Iran later this month, but the last-minute turnabout hinted that his calls for pluralism and moderation, rather than violence and religious intolerance, may have been heeded by some voters.
Mr Obama’s calls for an end to Israeli settlement building in the West Bank, and the creation of a Palestinian state, impressed many ordinary people, as well as liberal politicians in the Arab world who see resolving the conflict as a key to defusing Islamic extremism and removing the excuse used by oppressive regimes for banning free elections.
All agree that Mr Obama will have a narrow window of opportunity in which to capitalise on the goodwill he has garnered for America, which has long been viewed with deep distrust as pro-Israeli and favouring repressive, stable client governments over democracy.
To that end, Mr Obama is moving quickly to reinvigorate a peace progress that fell into deep freeze during the eight-year presidency of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Yesterday, his special Middle East envoy George Mitchell — who helped to bring Northern Ireland’s Troubles to an end — set off once again for the region promising an immediate effort to resume peace talks.
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“The President has told me to exert all efforts to create the circumstance when the parties can begin immediate discussions,” Mr Mitchell said, adding that his aim was “a comprehensive peace and normalisation of relations” between Israel and its neighbours.
Unlike his predecessors, Mr Obama has linked solving the conflict to the United States’ own national security interests. He has also called for an open, more honest approach, all but apologising in Cairo for a string of heavy-handed US interventions in the region, from a CIA-backed coup against Iran’s democratically elected government in the early 1950s to the invasion of Iraq six years ago.
The election of Lebanon’s March 14 bloc is not only a blow to Hezbollah, but also to its main backers, Syria and Iran. The bloc came to power on the back of a wave of anti-Syrian protest following the assassination of the former prime minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005, which led to Syria withdrawing its troops from its smaller neighbour after decades of military domination.
Hezbollah conceded defeat but will remain powerful in Lebanon, and was quick to warn against efforts to disarm its powerful militia.
“The majority must commit not to question our role as a resistance party, the legitimacy of our weapons arsenal and the fact that Israel is an enemy state,” a Hezbollah official said.
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The victory of the anti-Hezbollah allaince may help US diplomatic efforts to engage with Syria, which will see itself as increasingly isolated. It could also encourage moderates in Iranian elections later this month, although in the Islamic Republic, real power lies with the conservative Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who will decide when the time is right to start serious discussions with Washington.