Obama Faints. --- Hizbullah Loses Lebanon Elections Election result are in from Lebanon, and the pro-Western "March 14" parties are the big winner: The March 14 alliance clinched around 70 out of 128 seats, maintaining its majority in parliament after defeating the Hizbullah-led alliance in Sunday's crucial elections. Celebrations broke out in several cities as television stations began airing preliminary results.The opposition confirmed defeat. "We have lost the election," said a senior politician close to the March 8 alliance. "We accept the result as the will of the people." More from Middle East News (via Monsters and Critics): Beirut - Lebanon's Western-backed majority parties celebrated Sunday after winning a crucial parliamentary election that pitted them against the Hezbollah-led opposition. A close aide of majority alliance head Saad Hariri told the German Press Agency dpa: 'So far we will have at least 70 seats in the 128- member parliament, and the majority is back to rule.' Shortly after initial results were out, cars carrying the flags of the majority alliance cruised the streets of the capital, Beirut, their occupants chanting 'God bless Hariri and the ruling majority.' In the main Christian area of Ashrafiyeh, followers of the ruling majority gathered at the main square of the area and started dancing in the streets. Photo of celebrations in Christian section of Beirut (AFP via Al-Jazeera):
Mir-Hossein Mousavi is also appparently a pretty strong front runner in Iran. It's amazing what can happen when you don't run around calling people "the Axis of Evil", saying things like "either your with us or against us", and generally talking down to entire cultures.
I read something yesterday where the clerics are joining with reformists in wanting to take Ahmadinejad down. He's probably a goner, but we won't know until after the likely run-off.
If anything it's to Obama's credit that people believe there are leaders in the west they can actually work with now.
It's a shame that basso started this thread. It's a legit subject but, of course, he has to make a stupid, distracting remark in the OP.
I doubt Obama's speech affected this election, which is why I find it very encouraging. This may prove it will be very difficult for a Hezbollah alliance to win power.
I suspect that Obama’s speech did have an impact. This was supposed to be a very close election, and yet the March 14 Alliance won with a bit of a margin. I think it’s a great thing if Obama’s speech had an impact too. What Obama did was to take a big step toward rebuilding the US’s reputation moral standing in the ME, and the world as well for that matter, and that’s a very good kind of influence. Only the real extremists are against that kind of influence, like the Bin Ladens and Bassos of the world.
Basso is referring that Obama fainted due to the progress the lebanese people going towards a different direction in the recent election. That is positive progress and Obama is proud of that.
Unbelievable. Lebanon was won by pro-western parties. This is similar to the change in the Senate from Republican to Democrat. There is more hope for peace in the area. Hopefully, Lebanon can act as a peace broker for us and the Middle East.
Except those same pro-Western parties were already in charge before today. They've been the majority gov't, and they actually lost a net of 1 seat this election - the fear was that Hezbollah and allies would win outright.
Good for them, but Lebanon is not really a significant player in the Middle East. I would be a lot more excited if these election results were, say, in Egypt or Syria.
But according to the article, the election maintained their majority. A majority they held when Bush was president.
I too would like to know what basso is getting at in his original post, if he even has to stones to try and explain that. You know Iran was on a similar path not too long ago. Then somebody said something that caused all that progress to stop and now a guy who participated in the taking of American hostages in their leader.
