Lebanon held their elections today and Hezbollah did worse than expected, with their coalition failing to gain power. Meanwhile, Iran’s elections are scheduled for Friday and Ahmadinejad is looking very vulnerable.
The presidential campaign, now in its final week, has reached a level of passion and acrimony almost unheard-of in Iran.
In part, that appears to be because of a surge of energy in the campaign of Mir Hussein Moussavi, a reformist who is the leading contender to defeat Mr. Ahmadinejad in the election, set for Friday. Rallies for Mr. Moussavi have drawn tens of thousands of people in recent days, and a new unofficial poll suggests his support has markedly increased, with 54 percent of respondents saying they would vote for him compared with 39 percent for Mr. Ahmadinejad.
I’m not going to get into much detail in this post. I just want to point out that, should Mr. Moussavi prevail on Friday in Iran, both Lebanon and Iran will have voted for moderate and fairly pro-western governments. In rejecting Hezbollah and Ahmadinejad, the voters of the Middle East will reverse a course that began in response to Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Coming, as these elections do, in the immediate aftermath of Obama’s conciliatory Cairo speech, they seem to signify a cooling off of the recent tensions between the United States and the Muslim world. I don’t think this is a coincidence. I hope that Israel will feel a sense of relief and have some new confidence that they can make some concessions to help get the peace process moving again. If nothing else, they will have lost some talking points.
These are positive developments, and I am not at all sure they would be happening if John McCain had been elected president.
Well, all I can say is: I strongly I agree. This post is a good example of why I turn to BooMan again and again.
Thanks BooMan!
I dunno, since you just referred to his SOS this way:
in your previous thread.
I would say that kind of a characterization would make any progress seem unlikely. After all, I’d say Jesse Helms was a bit to the right of McCain yes?
what does her campaign have to do with elections in the Middle East and their impact on peace there? Is there even a shred of logic to your argument?
Iran with president Moussavi will be ‘a fairly pro-western government’? Really? Is the U.S. government, then, an anti-Iranian one?
If there is a ‘Muslim world’, please don’t tell me about the ‘Christian world’, which Obama was representing in Cairo: you and me, I stand here and you are there. What was the purpose of going on about the holocaust? It happened in the ‘Christian world’ not the ‘Muslim one’.
Israel is not fearful for its existence, Israel projects this emotion to divert attention and grab land and property. Israel’s arm will have to be twisted completely out of joint to get any concession – for Israel even the smallest concession is ‘painful’. In fact, if Obama has succeeded in hushing the ‘Muslim world’ for the time being, Israel will only feel more entitled than ever.
For a confrontationally eccentric take on Obama’s Cairo speech go to Counterpunch:
Farzana Versey, Walk Like an Egyptian: the Oprahfication of Obama.
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Obama’s Cairo speech go to Counterpunch
Opposing views:
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Will I ever learn to make a link? Yes, those two articles are positive. The article in Counterpunch is not an opposing view. It’s a different one. The ‘Muslim world’ and the ‘Other world (Christian?)’ are not opposed. They’re different.
I gotta agree with you on every point here.
Typical American reaction. “Pro-western”=moderate=good. Good for whom? Well, who cares as long as it is perceived as good for America, right?
Typical American reaction indeed. Typical also in that the analysis part is devoid of any real knowledge whatsoever. Calling the Saudi Wahabbists and their Lebanese acolytes “moderate” is lazy and frankly embarassing. Stick to the domestic issues where you have real knowledge and where you excel Booman.
Don’t reporters-opinion writers in other countries follow the politics of countries important to them?
Are there no articles about the politicians / elections in other countries that read:
“If “XXX,” who is a “moderate-extremist-isolationist-centrist-liberal…,” is elected, this will be “good-bad-dangerous-beneficial…” to our country.”
Are there really countries that are not “country-centric?”
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West Calder, November 27, 1879
My fifth principle is this, gentlemen, to acknowledge the equal rights of all nations. You may sympathise with one nation more than another. Nay, you must sympathise in certain circumstances with one nation more than another. You sympathise most with those nations, as a rule, with which you have the closest connection in language, in blood, and in religion, or whose circumstances at the time seem to give the strongest claim to sympathy. But in point of right all are equal, and you have no right to set up a system under which one of them is to be placed under moral suspicion or espionage, or to be made the constant subject of invective. If you do that, but especially if you claim for yourself a superiority, a pharisaical superiority over the whole of them, then I say you may talk about your patriotism if you please, but you are a misjudging friend of your country and in undermining the basis of the esteem and respect of other people for your country you are in reality inflicting the severest injury upon it.
Speeches to persuade British voters that Disraeli’s aggressive foreign policy was detrimental to the interests of the country.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Very wise words, though perhaps I think so because I agree. 😉
It seems to me, the forces of business, i.e., resources, markets, labor, etc., have had such an expanding influence on nations’ policies that I really wonder if we have totally, if not irrevocably, transitioned to a “corporate-nation” phase. It is interesting the time period of Mr. Gladstone’s speech occurs, as the industrial revolution builds and spreads. (Real History Lisa gave a link to “The History of Oil” which presents history from a very different perspective.)
Oui, I don’t doubt, as with your example, that there have always existed individuals and groups that reject any notion of “empire.” My questions had more to do with wondering whether the perspective of the news and opinion makers in other countries as they consider events and policies in countries important to them includes judgments as to whether the events, policies, elections, etc. are beneficial or not to them.
Would it really surprise you if Gladstone followed events and elections in other countries with more than intellectual interest or curiosity? Might he have been pleased if a group came into power in a country with ties to his, who were open to diplomacy?
I hope that it will be better for Lebanon and for Iran that they turn away from extremism. But, you’re right, I primarily care about it benefiting my own country.
Gawd Booman… “turning away from extremism” … “benefiting my own country”… since apparently such infantile drivel doesn’t embarrass you, let me just say that I feel embarrassed FOR you…
Speaking of gawd, what’s with the theocrat-love? Do you think it’s a good thing here, too, or just Out There?
Then I am probably doing something right.
If Ahmadinejad isn’t extreme, I don’t know who is.
From the link in the main body.
Ahmadinejad’s Iran extreme? In absolute terms as measured from a secularist western position, certainly. But then, within the Middle East, on relative terms, what countries are less extreme? Kemalist Turkey, certainly. Baathist Syria, probably. No other country comes to mind (no not Egypt, not Jordan, not… — mere subservience to US imperial interests doesn’t cut it here). Now are there any countries that are more extreme? Certainly there are two: namely the cultish Zionist entity known as Israel, whose government has just seen fit to label Iran as “Amalek” i.e. singled out by God for total destruction. And then of course there is the House of Saud, whose Wahabist fanaticism is so extreme that it makes Ahmedinejad look like some sort of John Kerry…
you know, Guthman, one of the things I rely upon as a short-form writer is that people remember what I wrote yesterday and the day before yesterday when they interpret my meaning. The blog format requires this from the reader because space and time requirements argue against reiterating every point in every post.
In extreme short-form blogging (see Atrios) much of what he writes is incomprehensible to the newbie because he doesn’t get the references.
So, I understand that the medium leads to some misunderstanding when blog posts are taken alone on their own footing.
But, when you are critiquing me, you might consider the many posts I have written about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East prior to the post you are responding to. They should give you a certain context about how I feel about Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, and Iran, and our policies towards them.
How many times have I strongly criticized U.S. policy towards Israel and Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians? How many times have criticized the tactics of groups like Hezbollah. How many times have I argued that the root of terrorism is in our relations with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel? How many times have I talked about American’s history with the Shah?
I hope that when I post a caveat that I am not going to go into great detail, that you might rely on prior posts to fill in the blanks.
All well and good, but what about your statement that Lebanon yesterday “turned away from extremism” (which triggered my tirade in the first place)? Electing pro Bin Laden fanatics in northern Lebanon and in the Bekaa valley in an election that was at the margin bought by Saudi Arabia is “moderation”?
Maybe it’s the throw-away side of the blog format that leads to occasional misfires like this. I mean something similar happened to me a while ago in the comment section here when somehow (and with hindsight quite inexplicably) I maneuvered myself into defending the credit card companies — an exercise about as worthy as siding with the Wahabbists…
are you assuming that anyone supported by Saudi Arabia is pro-bin laden? Because that is kind of counterintuitive. Got any links for that?
link
In fact, BooMan, Hariri’s party contains hard-core Salafi elements who are anything but pro-western, so I would not be so ready to celebrate.
In a heavily binary election, I’d expect to see radicals divide between the sides. It’s not much of a concern to me. It’s better to have Hezbollah stay where there were than gum up the works.
I don’t really care what Hezbollah wants from an electoral standpoint. Although, it’s awfully convenient to say you wanted to lose an election, or a baseball game, or the spelling bee, or whatever.
What I care about is getting the peace process started again, and a Hezbollah win would have been used by Israeli hardliners as an excuse for why they can’t restart the process, just as the Palestinian elections were. That’s gumming up the works, whether it is intentional or not.
As far as I know Hezballah did not say they wanted to lose the election. Some very knowledgeable analysts are suggesting that this was the case, and it is one plausible explanation. Others are suggesting other reasons, also plausible, that Hezballah did not do better. It looks to me like a combination of factors, possibly including that they preferred to keep their position in the opposition. In any case, Hezballah did not lose anything it already had. It had eleven members, and it maintained that number.
So, it is not really Hezballah that would gum up the works, it is Israel. Well, not to worry. If they don’t have the Hezballah excuse, Israel will find another. They always do.
Among well-known US journalists Seymour Hersh has written about the March 14 / Al Qaida connection. As far as Lebanon/Middle East blogs go, AbuKhalil is the most informed. Just last night he reported this charming tidbit (photo here.) Finally, here is a decent summary on the subject by Justin Raimondo from 2007.
A) Hersh has been wrong on nearly everything for more than 4 years now.
B) the Angry Arab is an Opposition partisan, and not objective.
C) the Angry Arab is accusing a man of being simultaneously a bin-Ladenist and a friend of Fatah al-Islam, when Fatah al-Islam is just as likely to be a Syrian front organization as it is to be a buffer against Hezbollah.
There are a lot of smoke and mirrors here, but what we have are uneasy alliances.
Your snippy dismissals are once again uninformed.
Hersh’s Lebanon pieces were decent for a non-Arabic speaker who has never lived in the country.
AbuKhalil is the most informed blogger on Lebanon in the English language bar none. Case in point: He is part of a tiny minority of observers who called this election correctly for March 14. Nor is he an opposition partisan. He is an anarcho-communist and that he has no qualms disclosing his biases doesn’t make him less thoughtful. As someone who has been called “in the tank for Obama” and what not by certain, I would have thought you would be somewhat more circumspect with dismissive labels like that.
When it comes to this stuff, you are operating way below your usual level Booman.
Did I hear anyone say stoopid?
Whatever. I just read about thirty posts at his site before I rendered that judgment. I stand by it.
If you came away with the notion that As`ad is an opposition partisan – or a partisan of any kind – after reading thirty posts on his blog, then you didn’t understand what you were reading.
uh, are you suggesting that he didn’t have a rather strong preference?
Yes. I suggest you stop advertising your complete ignorance on AbuKhalil and on all things Lebanese Booman. Trust me, you will live.
As`ad dislikes everyone in Lebanese politics.
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See my new diary –
Reality Check, Buying Votes in Lebanon
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."If McCain had won, what with his belligerent and bellicose attitude on foreign policy, we would all be dusting off our fallout shelters. For a real nightmarish moment, think of a McCain victory followed by his death in office and the coming to power of Sarah Palin, That thought still gives me goosebumps.
What kind of voting machines did they use?
Also, is the EU voting good for America? How’s that to be read?
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Each clan can print their own paper-ballots so they can vouch for the individual truly voting as paid for.
The paper ballot is used in the UK and since last election also in The Netherlands. The electronic voting machines were not tamperproof and the government was forced to discard them.
Lebanon Ballot Count and Victory Speeches
The EU voted for right-centrist parties and the Greens. Berlusconi, Sarkozy, Merkel all won due to defeat of the Socialists party throughout Europe, UK and Brown included.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."According to Franklin Lamb a big issue with the elections was insufficient ballot boxes at the polling places. Otherwise there were lots of watchers and in general a good process.
Uh, lets see, uh Iran bad, uh Hezbollah bad, uh check got that. Uh whoever the U.S. supports good, uh Israel uh good. Uh, wait on that last. Uh maybe, just maybe Israel can be not so good at times, but really everyone who is against Israel, uh right they are always bad.
Sorry Booman, I disagree with you. Hezbollah is more of a progressive force in Lebanon than many of those the U.S. supports. It’s most clearly seen in our support of the Saud family values.
You should try to spell out what it is about the Lebanese Hezbollah that you don’t like. Then look carefully at the sources that have provided you with the “facts” that underlie your impressions.
Did I say Iran was bad?
I said that it would be good if a reform candidate beat the loony Ahmadinejad. And ‘pro-western’ is relative in Iran. I’ll take the improvement and the increased hope of normalized relations.
As for Hezbollah, I recognize that their political arm has a strong economic justice component, but they’re implacably anti-American and the election of their coalition would have badly complicated efforts to restart the peace process.
Implacably anti-American? Really? Well, that implies that they are utterly, irredeemably fanatical and incapable of rational thought or action. People I know who are genuinely knowledgeable about Hezballah would not agree with your assessment at all.
Perhaps you need to take a closer look at your sources, and possibly find some new ones?
they are “implacably” anti-American. After all the U.S. is implacably anti-Lebanese Hezbollah.
But really that’s not the only impression I get from reading various sources.
I’ll have more to say later. For now, here for your amusement, and possible enlightenment, is the “ballot” cast by at least one Lebanese voter:
The “ballot” reads, literally translated:
shit on you and on this, your election
“banana republic”
A human citizen
Human in this context could be interpreted as something like “decent human being”.