Mona Alami

Hezbollah’s strong showing in the May Lebanese parliamentary elections provides numerical evidence of a decade-old shift in the balance of power in favor of Iran, the party’s regional backer. Hezbollah’s electoral gains will enable the militant group and its partners to secure a third of the parliament and possibly to achieve—with the right alliances—an absolute majority, and thus heavily influence future state decisions. Yet the Lebanese elections have been also been marked by other, more subtle trends that foreign policy makers must take into account.