Foreign Correspondent: A New Arab Spring In Lebanon And Iraq-- Once Again, People In The Middle East Want Democratic Reforms And An End To Corruption And Foreign Domination

-by Reese Erlich

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Lebanese have been demonstrating in the streets against corruption and for democratic rights. The protestors come from all economic classes and religious/ethnic groups.

Like the Arab Spring uprisings that began in 2010, these protests are spontaneous and without traditional leaders. And they are sending corrupt political parties and foreign powers scrambling to manipulate the protests for their own nefarious ends.

The current protests raise many of the same issues as the Arab Spring, says David Dunford, a former U.S. ambassador to several Middle East countries and author of From Sadat to Saddam: The Decline of American Diplomacy in the Middle East.




“People in both countries are sick and tired of sectarian jockeying and foreign influence,” he tells me in a phone interview.

In my opinion, the uprisings expose false logic of the vacuum theory, which posits that U.S. military withdrawal automatically benefits the villain du jour, whether Russia, Iran, or China. Instead, the protests show that the people of the Middle East don’t want domination by Washington, D.C., or any outside power.

Lebanon crisis

On a trip to Lebanon earlier this year, I spoke with businessmen who warned of a coming economic crisis. The Lebanese currency was dropping against the dollar, and the businessmen saw an economic meltdown coming.

It wasn’t hard to see why. Walking along Beirut’s cornice, or seaside road, I passed by dozens of vacant, multi-million dollar condos owned as vacation homes or investments by Saudi sheiks and Emirati businessmen.

Meanwhile, working class Lebanese can’t get basic services: electricity, garbage collection and protection from raging forest fires. The poverty rate is around 30 percent, according to the World Bank.

On October 17, spontaneous demonstrations began when the government imposed a new tax on the What’s App program, widely used on cell phones to make free calls. But demonstrators quickly added corruption and lack of democracy to their list of demands. They called for the entire government to resign and an end to Lebanon’s system by which certain government positions are guaranteed to each ethnic/religious group and hence to the corrupt political parties.

People sat down on major thoroughfares and set up roadblocks. Universities shut, and when they reopened, students refused to attend. Banks closed because depositors feared they couldn’t access their money.

For the first time, Lebanese from different economic classes and religions joined together demanding an end to the country’s sectarian political system. They opposed the old, corrupt parties, whether backed by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, or Iran.

People were particularly angry with Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who gave $16 million to his bikini model mistress. Hariri and his cabinet resigned October 29. All the parties in the ruling coalition, which was led by Hezbollah, scrambled to respond.

Amal and Hezbollah, the two parties with largely Shia Muslim support, initially supported the demonstrations. But so did Samir Geagea, the ultra right wing Maronite Christian leader and sworn enemy of Hezbollah. Hezbollah and Amal later withdrew support, having been accused of beating peaceful demonstrators.

Groundhog Day all over again

The Trump Administration, in what has become a Groundhog Day experience, didn’t know how to respond to yet another world crisis, according to a former U.S. diplomat who recently met with White House and State Department officials. Washington views Lebanon through the prism of Iran and Syria, he says. “They have no understanding of what's going on in Lebanon,” the diplomat tells me, on condition of anonymity.

So far, the Trump Administration does not plan a military intervention but seeks to weaken Hezbollah, which it alleges is an Iranian proxy. But factions within the administration differ on tactics.

The White House’s National Security staff believes Hezbollah controls the Lebanese government and has significant influence in the Lebanese Army. They want to pressure the Army and opposition parties to break with Hezbollah.

So on October 31, in a surprise move, the U.S. stopped all aid to the Lebanese Army, including $105 million which had been already approved in September.

The State Department and Pentagon opposed the aid cut, arguing that the Army constitutes a stabilizing and pro-western force. Cutting U.S. military aid, they argue, just provides more openings for Iran and Russia to exert influence.

All sides believe that the mass protests have weakened Hezbollah. But Hezbollah not only has a well-armed, battle-hardened militia, it can mobilize tens of thousands of civilian supporters in a matter of hours. It consistently wins seats in the Lebanese parliament and has proven adept at forming electoral alliances, even with former enemies.

Iraqis oppose U.S. and Iran

Given Lebanon’s unsuccessful system guaranteeing government positions to ethnic groups, you’d think the U.S. would have tried something different in Iraq. Instead, Washington has created an equally flawed system and imposed it on a poorer, war-ravaged country.

In Iraq, the political parties break down by religious/ethnic group, resulting in a Shia Muslim prime minister and Kurdish president. Each party places its supporters in government jobs and issues government contracts to corrupt partners. As a result, the government functions as an ATM for the parties and the wealthy elite.

Meanwhile, ordinary Iraqis don’t have safe drinking water and government-supplied electricity. Many complain that government services are worse today than under Saddam Hussein.

Protests against corruption and the party system broke out October 1. Demonstrators condemned corruption in the pro-U.S. and pro-Iran parties in Iraq, and within the parties of the Kurdish region.

The government launched a brutal crackdown. To date, more than 300 protesters have been killed, mostly by uniformed security forces and government-affiliated snipers.

Protesters threw gasoline bombs at the Iranian consulate in Karbala and chanted anti-Iran slogans. Persons unknown launched seventeen rockets into a U.S. air base.

Iraqis have long opposed U.S. occupation of their country. But over the past few years, they’ve also grown angry at Iran’s influence over certain political parties and Iranian-controlled militias affiliated with the Iraqi Army.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's leading Muslim cleric, has supported the demonstrations and opposed Iranian meddling. Moktada al-Sadr, whose political party won a plurality in the last parliamentary elections, has called for an end to all foreign interference, whether from Washington or Tehran.

The uprisings in Lebanon and Iraq show once again that people in the Middle East want democratic reforms, and an end to corruption and foreign domination. Nowhere is it written that countries must either support the U.S. or Iran. It may be difficult, but people can determine their own future.

Baby Doc Duvalier Didn't Show Up At The Wedding... I Don't Think

Baby Doc & Papa Doc-- there may be a chicken or pig left to steal

You may have guessed that I don't spend a lot of time with rightists; not my cup of tea-- and I have so little self-control that I just fight with them. But... my friend Jean-Michel was different from the rest. My old boss has homes around the world, always fabulous places sitting in exactly the best place in every city. That's what happens when you're the guy who signs Madonna. Problem with all these fabulous homes is that he's a pig beyond belief. Every home was uninhabitable. It isn't only because he doesn't like having strangers coming in to clean, it's because strangers refuse to! He's an "art" collector-- one of the world's most notorious... and "art" is very much stretched to cover a lot of ground even beyond one of the world's most complete homoerotic collections and so much art deco furniture that he could turn his mansions into warehouses-- which, of course, he has. But he's not the rightist I'm talking about.

When I worked for him I used to have to travel to our affiliated companies around the world. He suggested I could save a lot of money on my expenses if I stayed at his places instead of hotels. But his places turned out to be gross. I tried hiring someone to clean one of his 3 London flats but I wound up having to hire a whole crew-- for three solid days. However, a block and a half from l'Étoile, oui, oui, the Arc de Triomphe he had a place that needed no cleaning. That's because Jean-Michel lived there full time. We became good friends and just avoided talking about politics, not always easy since he had been a paratrooper for Kataeb, the Lebanese Phalangist Party (oui, oui, fascists-- the real thing)-- led by the Maronite Christian Amin Gemayel and funded by Israel-- in the 1980s.

He was my boss' most handsome and cultivated boyfriend but he eventually got married (to a woman) and invited me to the wedding. It was spectacular. The lovely bride's papa had been the Minister of Finance in Baby Doc Duvalier's Haitian kleptocracy until they fled the country in 1986-- with the national treasury. Mon. Minister bought a lush park with gently rolling green hills just outside of Paris with a château that you'd expect to see Marie Antoinette's ghost running around looking for her head. The park was big enough to build his daughter and Jean-Michel a classic-looking château of their own a couple kilometers away. What a nice place for a wedding.

The most fundamental problems of the Haitian economy, however, were economic mismanagement and corruption. More avaricious than his father, Jean-Claude Duvalier overstepped even the traditionally accepted boundaries of Haitian corruption. Duvalierists under Jean-Claude engaged in, among other activities, drug trafficking, pilferage of development and food aid, illegal resale and export of subsidized oil, fraudulent lotteries, export of cadavers and blood plasma, manipulation of government contracts, tampering with pension funds, and skimming of budgeted funds. As a result, the president for life and his wife lived luxuriously, in stark contrast to the absolute poverty of most Haitians. Allegations of official corruption surfaced when Duvalier appointed a former World Bank official, Marc Bazin, to the post of finance minister in 1982. Bazin sought to investigate corruption and to reform fiscal accounting practices in connection with a 1981 International Monetary Fund (IMF) economic stabilization agreement. More zealous than Duvalier had anticipated, Bazin documented case after case of corruption, determined that at least 36 percent of government revenue was embezzled, and declared the country the "most mismanaged in the region." Although quickly replaced, Bazin gave credence to foreign complaints of corruption, such as that contained in a 1982 report by the Canadian government that deemed Duvalier's Haiti a kleptocracy.

Jean-Michel's more amenable father-in-law followed a quickly dispatched Bazin. I can't say I've kept up with any of them-- except my old boss, and it is through him I found out that Jean-Michel split up with Baby Doc's Finance Minister fille. Jean-Michel is no doubt still in France, in all likelihood supporting the rise of Marine Le Pen. But what about Jean-Michel's ex-wife (and child)? As you no doubt know by now, Baby Doc's back in Haiti, broke... but did he bring the pillager of the national treasury (and his family)? And will there be trials? A wikileaks document from 5 years ago indicates that the U.S. was worried Baby Doc might try to come back. Duvalier says he's back to help, not for politics, but no one believes that.

Coming against the backdrop of an earthquake that killed 250,000 and reduced sections of the capital, Port-au-Prince, to dust, paralysis in the efforts to rebuild, a fatal cholera epidemic, a presidential election crisis and crippling social conditions, the playboy president's re-emergence put one more bizarre twist in Haiti's chaotic landscape.

However, after stepping off an Air France flight from Paris and kissing the ground, the 59-year-old insisted that his intentions were pure. "I am not here for politics," he claimed. "I am here for the reconstruction of Haiti."

It had been an "emotional return," said his second wife, Veronique Roy, who was asked at the airport why they had come. "Why not?" she replied, claiming that they planned to stay for only three days.

...Duvalier presided over a dark chapter in Haiti's history, becoming the world's youngest head of state in 1971 when he assumed the title of "president for life" at the age of 19, following the death of his father, Francis "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who had ruled since 1957.

Their successive dictatorships brought decades of savagery, corruption and the wholesale theft of state funds while the population cowered in fear, poverty and starvation.

Both executed a campaign of bloody oppression, torturing and killing political opponents in their tens of thousands and handing free rein to a bloodthirsty militia known as the Tonton Macoute-- Creole for "bogeyman"-- to silence detractors. Trade unionism and independent media were crushed. Those who spoke out or agitated for democracy disappeared, sometimes assassinated in broad daylight, their corpses often strung from trees as a warning.

Up to 30,000 people were murdered and hundreds of thousands more driven into exile.

"It is the destiny of the people of Haiti to suffer," Baby Doc once declared, as his people scratched for survival.

By the time a series of popular uprisings finally destabilised his dictatorship in 1986, the international community was ready to help show him the door.

President Ronald Reagan's administration provided a US air force jet to spirit him out of the country under cover of darkness and France, Haiti's former colonial ruler, granted him and his 20-strong entourage asylum-- an arrangement that it intended to be temporary, until realising that no other country would take him off its hands thereafter.

UPDATE: Baby Doc In Custody-- Where All Tyrants And Sociopaths Should Be

Jean-Claude Duvalier has been charged with corruption. How could it be otherwise? Well, the Tunisian president and his family got away with $20 billion (+ a last minute ton and a half of gold). And just like morons in our country protest that Congress passed a health care bill, idiots in Haiti are protesting that Duvalier may have to face the consequences of his 15 year kleptocracy, not to mention an abysmal record of human rights abuses.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among others, have urged the authorities to prosecute the former dictator for jailing, torturing and murdering thousands of people during his time in power. His longtime companion, Veronique Roy, when asked whether Duvalier was being arrested, simply laughed and said nothing.

The scene evoked memories of 7 February 1986 when crowds danced in the streets after widespread revolts and international pressure led to his departure.

His Swiss-banked fortune long used up in divorce and tax disputes, Duvalier returned to Haiti without warning on Sunday on a flight from Paris, saying he wanted to help. "I'm not here for politics. I'm here for the reconstruction of Haiti."

A spokesman for the UN high commissioner for human rights said it should be easier to prosecute Duvalier in Haiti because it was where atrocities took place but that the judicial system was fragile.

It remained unclear why he returned and what impact it would have on the year-long post-quake crisis which has left a leadership vacuum and a country in ferment, with near daily street demonstrations by rival factions.

Lebanese Government Collapses While The Prime Minister Is Visiting Obama

Everybody has always told me that Lebanon is beautiful and a "must see." In fact, just last weekend the NY Times listed the 41 best places to visit in 2011, and among trouble spots like Cali (Colombia), Tunisia, Loreto (Mexico), Tlemcen (Algeria), Kosovo, the Republic of Georgia, the Kurdish part of Iraq, Port Ghalib (Egypt), where sharks have been eating tourists lately, and Miami, conspicuously not tucked in was any peep about beautiful Lebanon, which just a few months ago the Times was pushing as a foodie paradise:

After more than 30 years of civil war, invasion and occupation, Lebanon is prospering again, and the downtown area of Beirut, the capital, has risen from the rubble. Among more than 400 projects are a new waterfront area, parks, world-class hotels, high-end shops and restored monuments, churches, mosques and even the synagogue.

And to help the city reclaim its title as the Paris of the Middle East are more than 100 restaurants, some involving notable chefs and restaurateurs.

“We are bringing in world-renowned chefs to make Beirut the food capital of the Middle East,” said Joseph Asseily, chairman of Beirut Hospitality, a division of Solidere, the Lebanese company in charge of the downtown development.

Joël Robuchon, Yannick Alléno, Antoine Westermann, the Parisian baker Eric Kayser and perhaps even Jean-Georges Vongerichten are among the marquee names poised to draw tourists and cosmopolitan locals to the once devastated quarter.

Yesterday's Times had a different kind of Lebanon story:  the collapse of the country's more-or-less democratically elected government.

Hezbollah and its allies forced the collapse of the government here on Wednesday, deepening a crisis over a United Nations-backed tribunal investigating the assassination of a former prime minister.

Eleven of the cabinet’s 30 ministers announced their resignations, a move that dissolves the government. They said they were prompted to act by the cabinet’s refusal to convene an emergency session to oppose the tribunal, which is expected to indict members of Hezbollah.

Ten of the ministers announced their resignations just as Prime Minister Saad Hariri was meeting with President Obama in Washington. The opposition had hoped that all 11 ministers would resign together, to bring down the government at that time and expose Mr. Hariri to the maximum embarrassment.

...Hezbollah and its foes have wrestled over the direction of the small Mediterranean country since the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, was killed in a bombing along Beirut’s seafront in 2005. Twenty-two other people died in the attack. Since then, the tribunal has investigated his death and is now widely expected to indict members of Hezbollah, the country’s powerful Shiite Muslim movement.

Hezbollah has denied involvement and denounced the tribunal as an “Israeli project.” It has urged Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the slain man’s son, to reject its findings. Mr. Hariri, who has so far resisted the pressure, cut short his visit to the United States in order to return early to Lebanon and deal with the widening political crisis.

There has been a sense of inevitability to the resignation by cabinet ministers allied with Hezbollah. For months, Hezbollah has warned that it would not stand by as its members were accused of involvement in the assassination of Mr. Hariri’s father. Though it is technically part of the opposition, Hezbollah joined a unity government formed after elections in June 2009. It has emerged as the single most powerful force in the country, aided by its alliance with a powerful Christian general and the fracturing of its foes.

In contrast to 2005, Hezbollah’s adversaries-- gathered around Mr. Hariri-- have fewer options and less support than they once did, emblematic of the vast changes in Lebanon’s political landscape the past few years. While the Bush administration wholeheartedly backed Mr. Hariri and his allies then, President Obama has not pledged the same kind of support. Syria, whose influence was waning in 2005, has re-emerged in Lebanon, and even its detractors here have sought some kind of relationship with it. Most Lebanese also vividly recall the speed at which Hezbollah and its allies vanquished their foes in just a few days of street fighting in Beirut in May 2008.

“Who are your allies these days?” Sateh Noureddine, a columnist with As-Safir newspaper, asked of Mr. Hariri’s camp. “You are going to get beaten on the streets and you will not be able to respond.”

The decision to resign came after the collapse of talks between Saudi Arabia and Syria aimed at easing the political tension. The two countries have backed rival camps in Lebanon since 2005 and their initiative was seen across the political spectrum as the best chance to end the stalemate. But Tuesday night, Michel Aoun, a former general and Hezbollah’s Christian ally, announced the two sides were unable to reach an agreement.

The father of Saad Hariri, then-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was assassinated in 2005, and the fragile coalition Saad has headed since 2009 couldn't withstand demands by the Shi'a Hezbollah movement to denounce the tribunal, which would have been political suicide for him in the Sunni community, his base. His only backing comes from the Saudi royal family, and they didn't back him strongly enough to pressure Hezbollah's masters in Syria-- at least as implicated in the assassination as Hezbollah-- to call off their dogs. There is no good outcome to this mess. And the likelihood of me ever visiting in Lebanon has further diminished.

Can the Obama Administration Learn from the Death of Ayatollah Fadlallah?

Sayyed Fadlallah looks like a Hassidic rabbi

I usually turn to Reese Erlich when I need some advice about Cuba policy-- either directly or through his book, Dateline Havana: The Real Story of US Policy and the Future of Cuba. But Reese also wrote two other fascinating and enlightening books, The Iran Agenda and Conversations with Terrorists: Middle East Leaders on Politics, Violence and Empire and, come to think of it, the last time I heard from him was when he was in Tehran. He knew Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Fadlallah personally and he knows, despite the nonsense being repeated by our empty talking heads Fadallah wasn't a terrorist. Here's a guest post from Reese, originally published yesterday at CommonDreams.org

A senior editor at CNN lost her job for tweeting about him. Thousands of Lebanese Shiites poured into the streets to mourn him.

Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Fadlallah, often characterized in western media as the "spiritual adviser to Hezbollah," died of natural causes in Beirut this week at the age of 75. Many western leaders considered him a terrorist.

I've met Ayatollah Fadlallah, and he was no terrorist.

The CIA and other intelligence agencies tried to murder Fadlallah several times in the 1980s because they mistakenly thought he was responsible for the bombings of the US Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. But Fadlallah's survival only enhanced his reputation.

Apparently his aura continues to haunt the West. On July 7 Octavia Nasr, CNN Senior Editor for Middle East Affairs, sent out a tweet that she had "respect" for him and was "sad" about his passing. That was enough to get her fired.

Fadlallah held views with which I strongly disagreed. But dismissing him and other Middle East leaders as terrorists only makes solving problems more difficult. So far President Obama continues the same wrong-headed policies as his predecessors.

I interviewed Ayatollah Fadlallah in Beirut at the end of 2008. I had traveled to the region with actor/writer Peter Coyote to research an article that appeared in Vanity Fair. Fadlallah welcomed us to his compound in west Beirut.

Fadlallah made a dramatic entrance wearing dark brown robes and the black turban of a sayyed, a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammad. His hair and beard were already silver-grey. Shadows formed large crescents under his eyes. His dark raiments and worn visage belied his still sharp mind.

Fadlallah said he was never a "spiritual adviser" to Hezbollah. Hezbollah preferred Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a man with whom Fadlallah had many religious and political differences.

Fadlallah confirmed that the CIA and Saudi intelligence had tried to assassinate him with a car bomb in 1985. Eighty people died and 200 were wounded as the bomb blew up a Beirut apartment building. Fadlallah escaped unharmed. The CIA's participation was revealed in Bob Woodward's book Veil. After the horrific attack, Fadlallah's followers hung a huge banner over the ruins reading, "Made in the USA."

Bob Baer, a former CIA field officer in Beirut, told me that Fadlallah was not responsible for the US Embassy or Marine barracks attacks. Fadlallah was falsely accused by Christian Phalangists and others anxious to demonize him in the eyes of the US military and CIA.

Despite the bombing, however, Fadlallah did not take reflexively anti-US positions. He opposed seizing American hostages during the Lebanese Civil War, for example, and actually worked to get them freed.

Fadlallah went on to build a network of hospitals, schools and other social programs that served Lebanon's impoverished Shia Muslim community. After the end of the Civil War in 1990, Fadlallah emerged as a highly respected cleric with ties to Hezbollah, but also with a fierce independent streak. Lebanese knew him as much for his religious fatwas opposing smoking and favoring women's rights, as for his ties to Hezbollah.

Walid Jumblatt, a Lebanese parliament member strongly opposed to Hezbollah's ideology, told us, "Sometimes Fadlallah sides with Hezbollah, sometimes not. Fadlallah has his own independent way of thinking. He always challenged the Iranian leadership in spiritual issues."

And that's an important point often overlooked in Washington. Just as Fadlallah and Hezbollah don't always agree, neither do Hezbollah and Iran. Hezbollah enjoys political and military support from Iran, but it makes independent political decisions. For example, Hezbollah no longer seeks to create an Islamic state in Lebanon.

But the US and Israeli governments choose to ignore Hezbollah's changed views.

Hezbollah initially favored a "one-state" solution in which Palestinians would control all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Jews who were born or arrived in Israel after 1948 would have to leave. Such a "solution" is both unreal and immoral.

In recent years Hezbollah leaders began to face reality. They now say Palestinians must decide this question for themselves. "At the end, this is primarily a Palestinian matter," says Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah. "I, like any other person, may consider what is happening to be right or wrong.... I may have a different assessment, but at the end of the road no one can go to war on behalf of the Palestinians."

In short, if Israelis and Palestinians make peace based on a two-state solution, Hezbollah won't interfere. If Israel also withdrew from the occupied Golan Heights and Shebaa Farms, Hezbollah would focus on domestic Lebanese politics, not attacking Israel.

But neither President Obama nor Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu have ever seriously explored talks with Hezbollah as part of a wider peace-making process. Instead, they lumped together Fadlallah, Hezbollah and al Qaeda as enemies in a phony War on Terror.

Fadlallah made clear to us that he opposed al Qaeda and similar terrorist groups. He was among the first Muslim leaders to condemn the 9/11 attacks on the US, for example. Hezbollah also strongly opposed the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on American civilians.

The US made a huge mistake by labeling Ayatollah Fadlallah a terrorist and trying to assassinate him. Fadlallah was a learned man who applied his understanding of Islam to politics. When we talked about the role of religion and government, justification for suicide bombings, or the history of Jews in the Middle East, we strongly disagreed.

Yet the US and Israel had similar disputes with PLO leader Yasser Arafat, and both sides sat down for peace talks.

So far the Obama administration has made rhetorical criticisms of Israel without substantively impacting the Israeli occupation of Palestine. And when it comes to the War on Terror, the Obama administration prefers troop escalations, commando raids and drone attacks to undercutting the political appeal of terrorists by changing US policy.

Even before Obama took office, Fadlallah expressed concern that the new president would not break from the past. "U.S. presidents talk about supporting democracy," he says, "but in the Middle East, and the third world in general, they support the worst and ugliest kind of dictators."

Looks like Fadlallah may have been right.

Lebanon Elections-- A Proxy For The U.S. v Iran Cold War

Ziad Baroud, the Obama of Lebanon

Even though Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has his own tough electoral battle to face this Friday-- against two more reform minded candidates, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister, and Mehdi Karoubi, a moderate cleric (as well as a far right sociopath, Mohzen Rezai, "the Persian Dick Cheney"-- Iranian interference in yesterday's Lebanese elections was almost as palpable as America's interference. The Iranians were pushing their Shi'a co-religionists of Hezbollah, a populist-- albeit a reactionary one-- party, while the U.S. backed a coalition of securlar, mostly Sunni, pro-Western parties run by a gaggle of elite families (the March 14 coalition). In between are the Maronite Christians who aren't as uniformly committed to the pro-western bloc as you might think.

“It’s your choice between peace and war,” said Sami Gemayel, a Christian candidate who opposes Hezbollah, during a recent television appearance. “The choice is between Gaza and a developed, civilized Lebanese state.”

But the political realities of this small, chronically divided Mediterranean country are far less drastic, and far more complex. Hezbollah, which the United States considers a terrorist group, is already part of Parliament and the cabinet. It is almost certain to win the same number of Parliament seats-- 11 out of 128-- as it now holds. If Hezbollah and its allies win a majority for the first time-- and the race is likely to be very close-- there will be concern in Washington and Tel Aviv. But the Lebanese government will not fall into the hands of armed Islamists.

Instead, the election turns on the votes of Lebanon’s Christians, who are divided between the two main political camps. The real beneficiary of an opposition victory would not be Hezbollah but its main electoral partner, the Free Patriotic Movement, led by the retired Christian general Michel Aoun. His parliamentary bloc is already more than twice as large as Hezbollah’s, and a clear electoral victory could propel him into a dominant position.

To his critics, Mr. Aoun is a political opportunist and traitor whose alliance with Hezbollah, reached in 2006, threatens to draw Lebanon into the sphere of Syria and Iran, and to bring more ruinous wars with Israel. Historically, Lebanon’s Christians have identified more with the West.

To his supporters, Mr. Aoun is a reformer who has the will to change Lebanon’s entrenched culture of corruption, patronage and sectarian division. They say allying with Hezbollah is the only way to ultimately disarm it, and to move past the bitter history of Christian-Muslim tensions that has nurtured so much deadly conflict here. The Shiites are Lebanon’s largest sectarian group, and a policy of confrontation with Hezbollah-- the most popular Shiite party-- is a recipe for renewed civil war, the Aounists say.

As the vote counts started trickling in last night, we learned quickly that the anti-Syrian/pro-Saudi Prime Minister Fouad Siniora won a seat reserved for Sunnis in Sidon. Early projections showed the March 14 coalition between Sunnis, Druze and some Christian parties winning between 67 and 70 out of the 128 seats in Parliament, with very heavy turnout, "a significant and unexpected defeat for Hezbollah and its allies, Iran and Syria. Most polls had showed a tight race, but one in which the Hezbollah-led group would win." This morning it is confirmed that the March 14 bloc won.

Results declared by Interior Minister Ziad Baroud showed Saad al-Hariri's pro-Western bloc had won 71 of parliament's 128 seats, against 57 for an opposition alliance that groups Shi'ite factions Hezbollah and Amal with Christian leader Michel Aoun.

The likeliest outcome of the poll is another "national unity" government, analysts say, though its formation might not go smoothly if the Hezbollah camp again insists on veto power.