Lebanon’s June parliamentary elections look like a lose-lose situation for the United States, and a tepid win-win situation for Hezbullah and her allies. If Hezbullah and its Amal and Christian allies win a majority, they will control even more of the agenda in Lebanon and the US will have to come to terms with it at some point. It is bad enough that Secretary of State Clinton would not meet her Lebanese counterpart when she visited that country because of his party affiliation. She only met with the president of the country and the March 14 leaders (Hariri group).

The British, often more clever in the politics of the Middle East, have already started to talk with the ‘political wing’ of Hezbullah. Perhaps the US will have to get rid of the Bush-Cheney legacy as well. That would require the 'Party of God' to end all attacks across the border, and no more kidnappings- there have been no attacks across the Israeli border since the summer of 2006, so maybe Israel did achieve some limited results besides killing and maiming thousands of Shi'as. It would be hard to ignore a coalition with a majority.

Bad news for Midle East reform: the world economy looks like it is picking up slowly. Even with a possible dip coming, crude petroleum price is highly unlikely to dip below $35 as was forecast only a few weeks ago. The prospect of crude pushing above $50, and being in a position to go much higher later on as demand picks up has been silently noted in the capitals of the Middle East.

The oligarchies have been walking a fine line balancing various forces and factors. Balancing the need to stimulate the local economies and keep the peoples at bay while resisting their avarious natural instincts. Balancing the need to contain Islamic extremism while feeling that they need the fundies to keep at bay the pathetic remnants of the once mighty secular leftists, who used to pester them about such irrelevant issues as accountability and participation. That was way back in the days before everybody discovered that fundamentalism, if not chic or even necessarily moral, was useful.

All that means is that all ideas of economic and political reform in the New Middle East will be shelved for now that there might be a light at the end of the dark petrolem tunnel. Until leaner times.

Arab Zollverein:

“Governor of Central Bank of Lebanon calls for a unifid Arab currency….He said that we are small economies with individual cuurencies tht cannot ‘unify’ our markets. We need one currency that can do that…..”  Middle East Online.

Audacity of Bins:

What else is new:

"The international committee for protection of journalists reports that the ten worst countries for bloggers  are: Burma, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Tunisia, China, Turkmenistan, Egypt." Aafaq.

Notice how six of those ten countries have one thing in common? And how four of them have several things in common?

A Nuclear King:

“Jordan to build four nuclear reactors within two decades…..It will be for peaceful purposes….Countries that could build the reactors include Korea (no, not that Korea), France, Canda, Russia, and the USA..” Middle East Online.

Cute the way he inserted Russia and Korea in there (it will be the USA or France, if anyone). Did not say where they will get the money and, more important, the local brains to run them once they are in place. They got to import the brains from somewhere, you’d think.

One silver lining about the whole Middle East going nuclear (weapons, that is): like the cold war, it will sharpen the minds, focus them on keeping the peace. Sort of like the Cold War, it will keep the peace through a balance of terror. Even the mullahs in Tehran and the zealots in Tel Aviv (and Jerusalem) will understand that.

Revenge of the nerds: