Hezbollah Under the Sunni Umbrella Again

The lesson does not lie in the losers admitting defeat during the Lebanese elections. This is perfectly clear and needs no confirmation whatsoever. Ballot boxes have proved it in numbers. On the contrary, the lesson lies in their acknowledgement of its meaning and political repercussions both locally and regionally. It lies in their acknowledgment that their four-year long program supported by foreign parties has failed, so has the “Christian alternative” they have tried to promote and impose.

Following Rafic Hariri’s assassination in 2005, Hezbollah found the moment opportune to get rid of the “umbrella” provided by the great man and the Sunni community after the Taef Agreement. It was encouraged in this by Ahmadinejad’s rise to power in Iran and the heightened conflict between Tehran and its Arab environment, as the Islamic Republic sought to benefit from the US quagmire in Iraq to expand its role and influence in the region. This trend found its echo in MP Michel Aoun’s political narcissism. Driven by personal reasons and his passion for power, he made a 180-degree shift and turned into an ally of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, standing out as an advocate of the weapons he had always criticized and attempted to contain through the international resolutions he helped draft.

Throughout the past years, Hezbollah waged a real continuous battle to minimize the role of Lebanon’s Sunnis. To this end, it obstructed the government, doubted the nationalism of Sunni symbols, and pitted other communities against them. It even mobilized its military capacity by occupying Beirut – with the Doha Agreement draping the party’s war in a partial political cover, and launched an electoral campaign that spared no official or position, even targeting the neutral parties, including the President of the Republic, in the hope of snatching the majority and turning the page definitively.

However, calculations were different on the ground. The results were disappointing. The Lebanese – especially the Christians – said their final word, and Hezbollah had to save its ally in more than one district by granting it Shiite votes in an unprecedented mobilization. The Sunnis, along with their leader Saad Hariri and their Christian allies, came out stronger than ever before, with a wide popular base that confirmed the rejection of the opposition’s internal political course, regional choices, vision for the country’s future and management of its daily affairs, as well as relation with the wider Arab environment. It also thwarted artificial alliances with mysterious objectives, improvised promises, blurred priorities and misrepresentation.

No one in the opposition – especially Aoun – will be able to escape accountability by attributing defeat to sectarian incitement and political money, as if it all of a sudden dawned on him that sectarianism and political money were rampant in Lebanon while in fact the opposition is up to its ears in them. Or else from where does Hezbollah get the millions it spends on its great military apparatus, and who funds its continuous armament?

With the courage of a victor, Hariri described victory as one for Lebanon and democracy. He reached out for the losers to preserve a national unity that he considers necessary for building the future. He refused to isolate the other camp and stressed on engaging it in power and the formulation of the main policies. He is hence giving an aperture to Hezbollah, which was left out in the open except by its own community; he is throwing a life preserver to help it return to the state’s ship it had tried to sink.