Lebanon dispatch: "Out of Gas"

Nicholas Noe, in JINSA's JISA, here

"...It was also built, perhaps even more impor-tantly, on the backs of some of Washington’s supposedly worst enemies: primar-ily the militant Shi’ite party Hezbollah, which delivered enough votes to March14 to allow it to form a government and hold a slim majority in the country’s128-member Parliament......March 14 is now ostensibly on life support, desperately trying to come to terms with a changing international scene .......Given the continued strength of Aoun, as well as the demonstrated ability of his allies to turn out supporters, March 14 clearly now believes that its best chance of winning battle-ground seats is to tap into the popularity of the independent Maronite president, Michel Suleiman, rather than rely on its own “brand.”......Even if the strategy of relying on neutrals progresses under ideal circumstances, March 14 faces two deeper problems: its continuing lack of organizational depth and competency and a further degradation of its appeal, as its core ideology slowly atrophies...... especially problematic in June since, unlike past elections held over several weeks, the contest this time will be held on only one day, with agility, communication and voter enthusiasm more critical than ever...... March 14 alliance continues to fight the clear-cut battles of 2005 rather than the more nuanced and tactically challenging post-Bush praxis...... The “new” March 14 emphasis on setting up the election as a kind of binding referendum on Hezbollah’s arms can also be viewed through this prism. With an Obama administration warming up to both Iran and Syria, it is less likely in the minds of swing voters that Washington would lend the kind of military support that would be necessary at a minimum to forcefully disarm the party.
Indeed, Aoun is already touting Hezbollah’s lack of military involvement in the recent Gaza conflict as a vindication of his 2006 Memorandum of Understanding with the group........ In the meantime, the minority alliance as a whole stands to reap further gains, in the absence of direct conflict or concrete actions by the Obama administration to aid March 14, from an Israeli leadership that appears to most Lebanese to be more unpredictable and dangerous than ever before."