Hizbullah's Political Strategy

摘要

The collapse of Lebanon's national unity government under Prime Minister Saad Hariri on 12 January 2011, when more than a third of the cabinet resigned, was primarily orchestrated by Hizbullah ('The Party of God'). The party's two ministers, and eight others from its March 8 alliance, stepped down, in what was widely seen as an attempt to halt the indictment of Hizbullah members by the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon, set up to investigate the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Saad's father. But while the party sees the indictments as an existential threat, the move to bring down the government was part of a wider strategy to achieve its long-term political ends. With the formation of a new government led by Prime Minister Najib Mikati (a Sunni who had also served as prime minister for three months in 2005) without the participation of Saad's March 14 alliance, Hizbullah will for the first time be part of a ruling coalition.