Savvy Jim Hoagland, observing Lebanon closely for 30 years, is (very) cautiously optimistic about democratic stirrings there. But he knows the old ways will die hard.
[This is] a moment to keep expectations from racing too far ahead of Lebanon's complex reality and the differing views that its troubles still provoke from outside powers, principally France and the United States.The best way to aid Lebanon's rebirth as a nation is to keep the focus on the intricate set of political negotiations over power-sharing that the Lebanese themselves must initiate, manage and make succeed once the Syrian boot is off their collective neck....
France and the United States have found common cause to press Syria's Bashar Assad to withdraw troops first sent to Beirut in 1976, with the approval of both powers. "Paris wants to stabilize Lebanon, and Washington wants to destabilize Syria," a diplomat in Europe said to me recently. "There's something for everyone."
The hard work lies ahead, as Assad predictably tries to buy time with vague promises and muscle-flexing through his Hezbollah allies.
But the key judgment made by the Bush administration in the spring of 2002 — that the political status quo could not and should not be maintained in the Middle East — is being proved prescient and worth pursuing through this Beirut Spring.
Compare and contrast his careful realism with this pontification from the editors of The New York Times, who seem to think there is some possibility that Hezbollah would "disarm."
[To] be a real political party, Hezbollah has to confirm that it intends to engage exclusively in peaceful politics. Refraining from all paramilitary activities would be a good first step toward proving that Hezbollah can truly transform itself from a heavily armed Islamist terrorist organization and engage in Lebanon's future as an independent political force.
Hezbollah, entirely financed and supported by both Iran and Syria, has no other reason to exist besides terrorism, and will never "disarm." To even dream otherwise is a futile fantasy.