A Measured Victory in Lebanon

President Barack Obama can flash a smile when he thinks of Lebanon today—which is something no American president has been able to do for a long, long time. The election results being tallied and retallied in Beirut are showing not just a victory for forces the United States has supported, but a humiliating defeat for those publicly backed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And as that fact sinks in on the Iranian public, it might even help sink Ahmadinejad's own prospects for re-election this coming Friday.

A lot was at stake if things had gone the other way. Many analysts expected the Lebanese coalition led by Hizbullah, a militia originally created and heavily supported by the Iranians, to win a major victory. That raised questions about whether—or if—the Americans who deem Hizbullah a terrorist organization would be able to deal with the Lebanese government at all. That's not going to be a problem now.

But Obama would be wise not to read too much into the Lebanese results. His speech to the Muslim world in Cairo last week may have had some positive impact. Visits to Beirut in recent months by Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have helped, too. At least they didn't hurt, which wouldn't have been the case with their predecessors. But it's just as likely that Ahmadinejad's endorsement of the Hizbullah-led coalition became more of a curse for his clients than a blessing.

A victory for Hizbullah in Lebanon "would change the situation in the region and would create new fronts for strengthening the resistance," Ahmadinejad declared last month. Of course, he meant resistance to Israel and the United States. But many Lebanese are at least as worried about their own need to resist Syria and, increasingly, Iran. Lebanese Christians, especially, proved to be a mass of conflicting sentiments —and votes—in Sunday's polls.

The fact is, Lebanese politics are uniquely treacherous, and not only because they often turn deadly. The country has served countless times as a proxy battleground for regional and global powers. As a result, the Lebanese have suffered decades of war, occupation, terror and thwarted development. Yet when elections take place, that old adage, "all politics is local," comes into play at every level and in very particular ways. Lebanon's government is divvied up by the Constitution on sectarian lines and can only function (when it functions) through coalitions. And the sects themselves are divided, with patriarchs and warlords, billionaires, visionaries, mystics, murderers and Lebanese mafiosi playing vital roles alongside more run-of-the-mill politicians. So this was never really going to be a two-way race.