We'd like to be the first to congratulate the State Department on the success of their clearheaded Lebanon II strategy. Keeping the IDF on a leash to keep the Siniora regime stable is working out awesome:

Lebanon's parliament failed to elect a successor to President Emile Lahoud just hours before he was set to leave office after it was unable to convene due to an opposition boycott Friday. The failure puts the country in a potentially explosive political vacuum. Speaker Nabih Berri said in a statement that the session was postponed for a week until Nov. 30 to give more time "for additional consultations to reach a consensus on electing a president." The opposition-aligned Berri made the decision 30 minutes after the legislature failed to muster the necessary two-thirds quorum to begin voting. It followed talks with leaders of the parliamentary majority... In the absence of a president, the anti-Syrian government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora takes executive power under the constitution. But the pro-Syrian Lahoud has vowed not to hand his authorities over to Saniora's administration, considering it unconstitutional after all five ministers of the Shiite Muslim community quit a year ago... The most dangerous scenario is that Lahoud could create an alternative government and hand it his power. Saniora's Western-backed government would likely refuse to step aside, leaving Lebanon with two rival governments, much like during the last two years of the 1975-90 civil war.

The State Department tried to bolster a fundamentally weak, somewhat pro-Western regime against Iranian proxies by de facto protecting those proxies from the IDF. Surprisingly, that didn't work. But maybe next time - Abbas, Hamas, Annapolis, etc. Because things always turn out differently when you try the exact same things over and over again, right?

References:
* Hezbollah's New Museum Is Breathtakingly Ungrateful For Massive US Help During Lebanon II [MR]
* Lebanon Fails to Elect President [TIME]

Previously:
* Memo To Foreign Policy Sophisticates - You'd Sound A Lot Less Stupid If You Stopped Mixing Your Condescension With Demonstrably False Fantasies Of Competence
* State Department Gets Bright Idea: Let's Screw Israel Even More By Bundling Syria Into The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process
* State Department, UN Make Things Up To Coerce Israeli Concessions, Scapegoat Israel When Plans Fail (Plus: Hezbollah Now Openly Bragging About Using Civilian Human Shields)