Lebanese hoping for 'central bloc' following election results - Robert Fisk »

Posted By dissent 6 months, 2 weeks ago in News

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA - NOVEMBER 4: Signs guide voters to a polling booth in the Municipality of Anchorage building November 4, 2008, in downtown Anchorage, Alaska. After nearly two years of presidential campaigning, U.S. citizens go to the polls today to vote in the election between Democratic presidential nominee U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Republican nominee U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). (Photo by Johnny Wagner/Getty Images)

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There will be no Islamic Republic of Lebanon. Nor will there be a pro-Western Lebanese republic. There will, after yesterday's vote – for the Hizbollah-Christian coalition and for the secular Sunni-Christian alliance – be a government of "national salvation" in Beirut, run by an ex-army general-president with ever-increasing powers.

Washington would have preferred that Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated ex-prime minister, came out with a clear win. But out of the shadows will come the same crippled, un-healable Lebanon; delightful, unworkable, poor old Lebanon, corrupt, beautiful, vanity-prone, intelligent, democratic – yes, definitely, democratic – and absolutely outside our powers to reform.