After more than two years without a president in Lebanon, the parliament convened on October 31 and elected Maronite Christian figure Michel Aoun. The previous president, former Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) chief of staff Michel Suleiman, finished his six-year term in May 2014, but the legislature was unable to reach consensus on his successor due to sectarian divisions (mostly between Sunnis, Shiites, and Christians) and competing foreign alignments (whether with Sunni Saudi Arabia or Shiite Iran).

Aoun has long been a controversial figure in Lebanon. Once the country’s most anti-Syrian political figure, since 2005 he has been aligned with the Assad regime and its principal ally in Lebanon, the Iranian-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah. Today’s decision represents a significant victory for the ambitious octogenarian general, but it also suggests new pragmatism among his political opponents — the so-called March 14 coalition, which had opposed his candidacy for a decade. While many welcome the potential end of political stagnation produced by the presidential vacuum, the key question is whether the agreement to elect Aoun also implies increased Iranian control.

INTO SYRIA’S ARMS

As LAF chief of staff at the end of Lebanon’s civil war, General Aoun militarily opposed both Syrian hegemony and the Taif Accord, which ended the conflict but diminished Christian political power. In 1990, as the Syrians occupied Lebanon, Aoun sought refuge in France; he later returned home in 2005 when the Syrians withdrew, aspiring to be president. Yet his hopes were dashed when the Sunni, Christian, and Druze leaders who made up the pro-West/anti-Syrian March 14 coalition opposed his candidacy.

Read the full article at the Washington Institute.