Party of God: winning the war, losing the peace?

As Hizballah steps up its maneuvers to oust the Lebanese government Tuesday (see Nick Blanford's exclusive interview with defiant Hizballah No. 2 Naim Qassem), I noticed an interesting statistic in the latest poll of Arab public opinion by Shibley Telhami with Zogby International: while nearly 70% of Lebanese Shiites had a more positive view of of the militant group after last summer's war with Israel, Hizballah's negatives were way up with everybody else. Roughly 45% of Sunnis, Druze and Christians viewed the group more negatively in contrast with the hero status Hizballah attained in the Arab media. Only about a quarter of non-Shiites in Lebanon thought more positively about Hizballah in the mid-November survey. Roughly half of non-Shiites thought the "Lebanese people" rather than Israelis were the "biggest loser" in the war.
True, Lebanese united during the conflict, but even in the thick of the war, it was clear that not even all Shiites were pleased with Hizballah's provocation. The poll illustrates why Hizballah's confrontation against Fouad Siniora's democratically elected government, which Qassem told Blanford is "illegitimate," poses dangers for the future of Lebanon and for Hizballah itself. While we need to be careful to avoid exaggeration, Shiite-Sunni tensions are clearly on the rise in Lebanon as well as throughout the region.
Check out Marc Lynch's parsing of the poll on his blog www.abuaardvark.com, one of the most interesting and useful sites about the Arab world in English.

By Scott MacLeod/Cairo