Word: hizballah
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Even Middle Eastern Christians have given up looking to the likes of the Pope for help. In Lebanon, the Middle Eastern nation with the largest concentration of Christians, roughly half of the country's Christians have broken away from their traditionally pro-Western leadership, forming a political alliance with Hizballah, the Shi'a Muslim anti-Israeli militant group. The leader of these breakaway Christians, a populist former general named Michel Aoun, is betting that the only way to secure a Christian future in Lebanon is to look east toward the rising power of Shi'a Islam. It may seem...
...further. It has advertised its willingness to negotiate with the governments in Damascus and Tehran, both terrorism sponsors, according to the State Department. It is also mulling overtures to the Taliban, which is killing U.S. troops and ordinary Afghans nearly every day. The U.S. still doesn't talk to Hizballah, but we do talk to the Lebanese government, in which Hizballah plays a - prominent role. (See pictures of 60 years of Israel...
...lawn. What it requires is this: at some point, Fatah and Hamas will probably form another national-unity government, which is what the Palestinian people badly want. In some form or another, that government will most likely include Hamas ministers. America should ignore them, just as we ignore the Hizballah ministers in the Lebanese government. But we should keep dealing with Abbas and the other non-Hamas types. This will do two things. First, it will allow commerce to start flowing into Gaza, since technically the strip won't be under Hamas' control. In practice, of course, Hamas will help...
...Suleiman era is changing other parts of Lebanese life as well. With the cooperation of both Hizballah and the United States, the Lebanese have begun modernizing an armed forces so weak and poorly-equipped that when it tried to put down a jihadist uprising in 2007, it had to hand roll bombs off of vintage Vietnam-era helicopters. In the past, such a weak Lebanese army was in the best interest of all the major regional players - from Iran and Syria to Israel and the U.S. - who used the country as a battlefield to settle their own scores. But there...
Unfortunately, Suleiman and his caretaker team probably won't have enough time to make a real dent in Lebanon's political culture. Parliamentary elections scheduled for June are likely to reopen all the old wounds. Both sides seem unprepared to return to the status quo. Hizballah no longer trusts its rivals to leave the group's military infrastructure untouched. And the American-supported coalition is busy scaring voters with dire scenarios of what will happen if the Hizballah opposition wins enough seats to form its own government: international sanctions and isolation akin to what happened when Hamas rose to power...