i've been reading a lot of consternation about the prospect that hezbollah will pick up some seats in tomorrow's lebanese election. it strikes me that the concern is misplaced. at best hezbollah will only end up with eleven or so seats (in an 128 seat parliament). it's true that the march 8th alliance (the coalition of political parties that hezbollah effectively leads) may collectively get a bare majority in parliament, but aside from simply assuming that anything good for hezbollah must be bad for those (like me) who don't like the group, few are considering whether a small win for hezbollah might ultimately be a good thing.
there is no plausible scenario for eliminating hezbollah. or even significantly weakening them, at least for the foreseeable future. like it or not, the group is going to be around for a while. but if hezbollah is part of the lebanese government and in a coalition with a narrow majority that includes a bunch of christian, sunni, druze, and secular parties, it will be forced to take those other (non-shia islamist) views into consideration if it wishes to stay in power. it's very easy to remain radical and doctrinaire if you're outside the political system. once they have a stake in the democratic process and rely on outside groups to maintain their influence, it forces moderation. because hezbollah is here to stay, moderation is the best possible outcome.
we've already seen the fruits of hezbollah's commitment to the lebanese political process. last winter, when israel launched its offensive against gaza, hezbollah largely refrained from attacking israel in the north. there's a lot of theories why they didn't launch any major attacks but the most plausible one in my mind is because they didn't want to trigger an israeli retaliation against lebanon and be blamed for the destruction at the polls. if hezbollah's leadership only cared about the views of its own radicals, it wouldn't have mostly held its fire.
really the biggest disadvantage to a narrow march 8th victory tomorrow is the potential freak out about an "iranian take-over of lebanon" by the paranoid sunni arab states, israel and the united states.
