The battle over who will be Lebanon's next president is the latest front line in the proxy war being fought by regional and international powers, writes Lucy Fielder from Beirut The direction outside powers want Lebanon's presidential elections to take will largely determine whether the tiny, conflict ridden country moves towards a new dispensation or civil war, believe analysts. Opposition MPs stayed late for Tuesday's parliamentary session in a successful bid to prevent a vote taking place prior to the emergence of a compromise candidate. Speaker Nabih Berri's announcement that the next attempt to choose a president will take place on 23 October now gives Lebanon some breathing space in which a candidate could emerge and hopefully end the political crisis sparked when President Emile Lahoud's term was extended three years ago through a Syrian-influenced constitutional amendment. With Washington and Saudi Arabia backing the Lebanese government, and Iran and Syria backing Hizbullah's opposition alliance, international stakes are high. If the US decides to use the presidential elections to pressure Iran, undermine Syria and help its ally Israel by pushing for Hizbullah's disarmament, Lebanon's anti-Syrian bloc will be encouraged to elect a candidate, perhaps by a simple majority, committed to disarming Hizbullah. Their choice would be unacceptable to the opposition who could respond by appointing a rival, seeing Lebanon slide further towards conflict. "Iran and Saudi Arabia are playing a complicated game," says Charles Harb, a social psychologist and political analyst at the American University of Beirut. "Iran wants to protect Hizbullah. The Americans are not voicing clearly what they want and have a [Middle East] peace conference coming up." French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner's suggestion that the world must prepare for war with Iran underlines how seriously possible military strikes against Tehran are being taken in European capitals. Nor is it clear yet if Syria will be included in the US-brokered Middle East conference scheduled for November, or whether the conference will engender a more conciliatory atmosphere between Damascus and Washington, or up the confrontational stakes. This month's Israeli strike on unknown targets in northern Syria suggests the latter. Hizbullah has made clear its weapons are a red line. And while the opposition's presidential candidate currently is Christian leader Michel Aoun, the Shia party would probably accept a consensus candidate such as army chief Michel Suleiman providing its holding of weapons is guaranteed. Before settling on a president, says one senior opposition source, Lebanon's competing factions must first agree on basic policy orientation, which means reaching agreement on four main issues: power-sharing and regaining the fragile balance between Lebanon's main sects; the nature of relations with Syria; Hizbullah's arms, and the Palestinian presence in Lebanon. The assassination last week of MP Antoine Ghanem, the sixth anti-Syrian figure to be killed since Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri was murdered in February 2005, could still encourage the 14 March anti-Syrian bloc to push ahead with a simple majority, half-plus-one, vote. The killing, they claim, was engineered by Damascus in an attempt to reduce the 14 March's majority in parliament -- they now have 68 out of 128 MPs -- and prevent them electing a president from their ranks. Harb points out that following the announcement by four pro-government MPs that they would not participate in a simple majority vote, that option was off the table before Ghanem's death. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora has asked the United Nations to add Ghanem's killing to the caseload of the international tribunal investigating Al-Hariri's death, and the pro-government An-Nahar newspaper has reported that the UN is circulating a draft resolution calling for free and fair elections and reiterating support for resolutions 1559 and 1701, which call for the disarmament of Hizbullah. The left-leaning pan-Arab Al-Akhbar also reported last week that the Security Council might be asked to endorse a simple majority election, a step that would be seen as openly provocative by the opposition. "The assassination is being used to promote greater internationalisation of Lebanon's problems and more international interference," the opposition source said. "There's even talk of holding the presidential vote outside Lebanon, though I don't know if they'll go that far." On the eve of the assassination 14 March leader Saad Al-Hariri and his Saudi Arabian backers had been close to accepting Berri's proposal to ease the crisis, the source said. The space given by Tuesday's deferral still leaves room for compromise. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal told Al-Arabiya television he hopes a consensus candidate will emerge. But a unilateral push remains possible, as do more assassinations and other violence aimed at reinforcing hardline positions. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt has predicted four more anti-Syrian MPs will be targeted, despite the fact that most have set up camp in the luxury Phoenicia hotel under high security. Ibrahim Al-Amine wrote in the pro-opposition daily Al-Akhbar that the opposition was considering its options should a simple majority vote be called. They include reviving the popular protest beyond the camp that has been occupying two Downtown squares since last December and electing an alternative president. The latter, says Karim Makdisi, associate professor of international relations at the American University of Beirut, would be a disaster: allowing Lebanon to fester under two ineffective and opposed governments would encourage the army to split, and could even result in the partition of the country.
