BEIRUT, LEBANON, February 15 — Most of the bourgeois parties representing various religious sects and nationalities here now agree to establishing a Hezbollah-led government that would cause a substantial change in the inter-imperialist relations and balance of power in the region. The pro-U.S. factions in the Lebanese ruling class are weakening, partially because of Hezbollah’s armed guerilla defeat of Israel in the 2006 war.
Hezbollah’s reconstruction project in Lebanon after that war made it popular among wide sections of the working class, mostly Shiites. The workers view this project as a “pro-people” initiative, contrary to the previous government’s policy of cuts, privatizations and rising prices for basic goods.
After the 2006 war, Hezbollah staged mass street demonstrations but refrained from taking power because it was not organized well enough to do so. Playing the “Hard-Line Opposition” role served it better politically. It’s likely that Hezbollah’s leaders were influenced by their bosses in Iran and Syria, and their rising imperialist masters in Beijing and Moscow, not to upset the inter-imperialist balance of power in the region, but rather to preserve the geo-political status quo.
The Iranian and Syrian regimes would like stable trade relations with the U.S. Hezbollah’s “anti-imperialist” politics maintain a “peaceful co-existence” policy towards U.S. bosses while leaning on the rising imperialist powers.
The victory of the pro-U.S. camp in the Lebanese ruling class in the recent elections was largely due to U.S. intervention in the elections, as well as the presence of European military forces (especially Italian and French) in Lebanon after the cease-fire at the end of the 2006 war.
Western imperialists in general, and particularly the U.S., have less resources to support their servants in the local ruling class, allowing rival imperialists to increase their influence in the region through the Iranian and Syrian regimes. Hezbollah in Lebanon, and, to a lesser degree, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, represent Chinese and Russian imperialism. Similarly, the Israeli Zionist capitalists, engaged in colonial robbery in the region, serve U.S. imperialism which funds and arms them. All these bosses are united in their oppression of Middle Eastern workers.
Lebanon is entering a crisis similar to that which preceded the civil war of the late 1970s as its ruling class seems more divided than ever. The U.S. and the other Western powers are finding it difficult to stabilize Lebanon’s bourgeois regime and capitalist economy due to the weak U.S. economy, as well as to the failure in 2006 by Israel to land a “finishing blow” on Hezbollah. This has further weakened the U.S. bosses’ grip on the region.
There is now more freedom of action for political forces that lean on the parts of the national bourgeoisie connected to the Iran-Syria bloc, and, by proxy, to the Chinese and Russian bosses. Hezbollah’s military might serves this imperialist bloc as a whip to discipline the Lebanese bourgeoisie.
This is why the capitalist Najib Mikati has been nominated to become Lebanon’s prime minister. Mekati has huge investments in regions under the influence of China and Russia (including several African countries, notably South Africa), but also owns stock in western multi-national corporations in such countries as France. His role is to mediate between the imperialist interests, suppress and weaken the active resistance by Lebanon’s working class, trying to block any potential revolutionary situation.
Without communist leadership, Lebanon’s working class often is split along religious and ethnic lines, serving various bourgeois camps. The workers, already active on the streets, must expand their struggle and transcend the national and sectarian divisions while building a conscious communist leadership to lead their class to take the future into its own hands.