BEIRUT — Reac­tion to the Amer­i­can mid-terms was muted in Beirut, a city still shell-shocked from the sum­mer war with Israel and con­sumed by its own domes­tic polit­i­cal drama.
Much of Lebanon’s atten­tion is focused not on Amer­i­can pol­i­tics, but its own, which are dom­i­nated by round­table talks tak­ing place this week among the country’s pow­er­ful feu­dal lords who pre­side over their own sec­tar­ian fief­doms.
“The Lebanese are read­ing the tea leaves as best they can,” said Paul Salem, the direc­tor of the Mid­dle East Cen­ter for the Carnegie Endow­ment for Inter­na­tional Peace, based in Beirut. “The (anti-Syrian) March 14 move­ment is fear­ing the loss of U.S. power and the other side is rel­ish­ing the loss of US power.“
The “other side” is the pro-Syrian coali­tion made up of Hezbol­lah and its allies, which include the Free Patri­otic Move­ment led by Maronite Chris­t­ian Michel Aoun and a num­ber of smaller par­ties. The round­table talks are aimed at bang­ing out a com­pro­mise on expand­ing the cur­rent gov­ern­ment, a Hezbol­lah demand fol­low­ing the July-August war and its self-proclaimed “Divine Vic­tory.“
The United States “will con­tinue to back the March 14 gov­ern­ment and the Sin­iora gov­ern­ment,” Salem said. “That won’t change because both Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans agree on that.“
All across down­town, the com­mer­cial heart of Beirut, most peo­ple met the news that vot­ers had deliv­ered a sharp rebuke to Pres­i­dent Bush with either blank stares or shrugs, despite wide­spread dis­like for the administration’s poli­cies and what is seen as unques­tion­ing sup­port for Israel. But among the Lebanese and expats who kept an eye on the elec­tions, there was a pal­pa­ble sense of sat­is­fac­tion that the GOP had lost.
“The Democ­rats won so the author­ity can change in the U.S.,” said one man puff­ing on a water­pipe who declined to give his name. “There should be changes. There is not one region in the world that is com­fort­able with cur­rent Amer­i­can poli­cies.“
Another man, Gabriel Abou Daher, 32, a tele­vi­sion pro­ducer for a Beirut adver­tis­ing agency, said he had been fol­low­ing the elec­tions “closely” and was pleased with the results.
“It’s a mes­sage to Pres­i­dent Bush over his inter­na­tional poli­cies,” he said. “Maybe he will take another look at them.“
As for Lebanon, how­ever, he is not expect­ing any­thing dif­fer­ent. “We have seen both par­ties have the same pol­icy regard­ing Israel,” Abou Daher said.
Oth­ers thought the Democ­rats would be even more pro-Israel.
“I get some sat­is­fac­tion from see­ing Bush get slapped in the face, but I don’t take any com­fort in it,” said Marc Sirois, a Cana­dian and the man­ag­ing edi­tor for the English-language Daily Star news­pa­per. “The Democ­rats are more depen­dent on the pro-Israeli lobby for cam­paign funds and to get out the vote than the Repub­li­cans are.“
He also cau­tioned that Bush still had two years left in his term and he still has all the pow­ers of the com­man­der in chief “to do what­ever he wants.“
“The only thing they (Con­gress) could do is cut the purse strings in Iraq,” he said.