| THE ELECTION of a new Lebanese President, after the office remained vacant for six months, has been widely welcomed. All the main political groups backed the choice of the army chief, Michel Suleiman.
There is a strong sense in Lebanon that the country, with the successful mediation of the Gulf state of Qatar, has narrowly avoided another civil war. Fighting between government supporters and opposition groups led by the Iranian- and Syrian-backed organisation Hizbollah had seemed in danger of engulfing the country.
President Suleiman, who is a Maronite Christian, called on Lebanese “politicians and citizens to start a new phase” in the country’s history “in order to achieve the interests of the nation”.
Two days later, the Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that his organisation did not seek to “control Lebanon or govern the country”. He said that “the existence of this country only comes through co-existence, and this is what we are demanding.”
But, minutes after the conclusion of his speech, clashes erupted briefly between Hizbollah supporters and gunmen loyal to the government.
So, while the main element behind the crisis of the past year in Lebanon — how differences over political power-sharing should be resolved — has been dealt with, a number of other issues have not.
The recent fighting highlighted the divisiveness of religious and political loyalties. In this respect, nothing has changed since the civil war that ended in 1990.
Further, weapons are still freely available. Hizbollah has shown itself again to be a strongly armed and powerful military and political force. The organisation has the muscle to take control of the country if it sees the need to do so. Israel and the US will be increasingly uneasy watching Hizbollah’s authority grow.
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