Angry Arab’s response:

Not much time to blog on the recent agreement in Doha, Qatar. If I had written that the Ta’if accords merely postponed the next round of civil war, you can imagine what I would say about this lousy sectarian agreement. It can be clearly said that the opposition scored big in the agreement, and an Iranian analyst told Al Jazeera that the new axis in the Middle East is the Iran-Syria-Qatar axis and not the Saudi axis. At that point he was interrupted. Qatar does not want to spoil its relations with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and U.S. will not like this agreement, and the opposition could not obtain those concessions prior to the armed actions in the streets. Saudi media are clearly not pleased, and opposition media are trying hard not to gloat. It is, like all other agreements in Lebanon, a sectarian agreement and deals with sectarian matters. The electoral law that they agreed on will ensure the prevention of the formation of national unity, as the electoral districts get smaller and smaller – that is what Patriarch Sfayr (who is touring the US to showcase his impressive hat collection)—always insisted on. The ultimate political question regarding who will hold the majority in the next parliament will be decided in one district or two: namely, the first district of Beirut. We don’t know how `Awn standing will be then. This is where the worst part of the conflict is: the fact that both sides care about the promotion of their petty and electoral districts, and both sides are the beneficiary of sectarianism. (See Khalid’s piece here). I know it does not look likely now, but really don’t be surprised if Hizbullah reaches an agreement with Hariri in the elections, and even with Jumblat. Sectarian groupings are always likely to bury the hatchet—literally in this case. True, the March 14 agreed on the candidacy of Sulayman, but he was early on a candidate of the opposition (and of Syria). And this Sulayman comes on the wake of the Lebanese Army’s bias in favor of Hizbullah during the recent clashes in Beirut. So now Lebanon will gave a new government, and Bush will stop talking about “the democratically-elected” government of Lebanon because the new government will not have Sanyurah, and will have members of the opposition. Is anybody keeping scores for the Bush Doctrine? And one more time: this is the opportunity for the Left in Lebanon to stand up and assert a new path: neither with the sectarian majority or with the sectarian minority.

Juan Cole says:

Although it is being said that the agreement makes Hizbullah powerful, actually it seems to me just to take us back to the status quo ante of 2005-2006 when Hizbullah was part of a national unity government and there was a relatively pro-Syrian general as president.

Economist Karim Makdisi says:

Lebanon is facing several critical issues. First there is a tremendous social and economic crisis in this country, there is a forty-five billion dollar debt, one of the largest debts per capita in the world, resulting from over a decade of neo-liberal economic policies that simply didn’t work throughout the 1990’s…In truth there is little opposition towards the economic policies that the government is putting forward, that is to say that the opposition in Lebanon is more or less in agreement with the government in regards to social and economic policy…Both the opposition and the government have attempted to sweep the main social and economic issues facing Lebanon under the carpet.

In truth, Hezbollah got the power of Veto. It’s a major step forward. And. They’re going to restructure the census to more accurately reflect Lebanon’s real demographics.

Of course there will be bickering. But in the new millenium, do we not have Qatar?

And Wadah?