IranHezbollah and allies win majority in Lebanon elections

The steady growth of Iran’s influence in the Middle East is continuing. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq turned that country from a Sunni-led arch-enemy of Iran to a cooperating Shi’a-led ally. The Shi’a Huthi rebellion in Yemen has turned that country from a Sunni-led friendly neighbor of Saudi Arabia into a base of Iran-supported military threats to Sunni Gulf states. Iran has used Assad’s victory in the Syrian civil war to begin turning Syria into a forward military base against Israel – something Israel has been trying to stop with military strikes against Iranian military installations in Syria.

Sunday brought more good news for Iran. The Iran-backed Hezbollah group and its allies are expected to take more than half the seats in Lebanon’s parliamentary elections.

The elections were the first in Lebanon in nine years.

Reuters reports that results from Lebanon’s parliamentary elections indicate that the Iran-backed Hezbollah group and its political allies would gain a simple majority.

This outcome would go beyond cementing the Shiite Hezbollah’s dominance of Lebanon. It would be a major step forward in Iran’s ambitious plan of becoming the hegemonic power in the region.

This latest Iranian victory is sure to increase concern among Iran’s rivals — Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and Egypt – and in the United States.

Hezbollah, founded in the early 1980s to fight Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, has been designated a terrorist group by the United States (the EU has designated Hezbollah’s military wing as a terror group, but regards Hezbollah’s political party as a legitimate actor in Lebanon).

Hezbollah has already been in complete control of south and east Lebanon, but its takeover of the entire country would raise questions about billions of dollars in U.S. military and economic aid to Lebanon, as well as international aid in which the United States is involved.

U.S. law not only prohibits providing aid to terrorist groups, but requires that the United States punish countries and private organizations and companies which provide such aid.

The election is the first vote under the new proportional system, which redrew constituency boundaries and changed the electoral system from winner-takes-all to a proportional one.

The election system has been changed, but not the Lebanese constitution, which divides the major positions of power among the country’s ethnic and religious groups.

Lebanon’s power sharing system mandates that the prime minister must be a Sunni. This means that Rafik Hariri, a Sunni whose party lost about a third of its seats in Parliament, will likely continue in his position.

In a speech to the nation, Hariri urged the international community to regard the electoral results in “a positive way.”

He pledged to continue working with President Michel Aoun, a Christian who is an ally of Hezbollah.

Analysts say that the election results notwithstanding, the complicated – and rigid – sectarian balance of power would remain mostly unchanged.