I might not the most authoritative source on all things Middle East, Lebanese or Iranian. Or all things for that matter. But the news today that Iran’s incumbent, Mahmood Ahmadinejad, has won Friday’s election, should be viewed with positivity here in Lebanon.

Coming six days after the Lebanese voted in their first post-Syrian elections- in which the ruling March 14 coalition won the majority of parliamentary seats – Iran’s electorate seem to have backed a hardliner and his antipathetic views towards the West.

The Lebanese election result was reported widely – if oversimplistically – as a victory for the West over Hizbullah’s support for (and from) Iran. Much of the Western press’ coverage centred on this reductive dichotomy of West vs East, of petrodollars and liberalism vs resistance and Islamist rhetoric.

While many March 14 supporters have made it clear that they don’t wish to see the firebrand Ahmadinejad at the helm of a country with potential nuclear ambitions for another four years, Iran’s decision gives legitimacy to a voice which was at risk of being drowned out in Lebanese politics - in spite of winning more of the popular vote - should comfort many in the Middle East.

Hizbullah’s ties with Iran are no secret, and the fact that a large proportion of voters turned out for the Shiite group on Sunday shows that this is a not altogether unpopular allegiance. Ahmadinejad’s election could avert widespread unrest among March 8 supporters who may have felt drowned out had Mousavi taken the victory he claimed late last night.

The fact that a Western-leaning coalition triumphed in Lebanon and Ahmadinejad, with all his anti-American, anti-Zionist rhetoric won in Iran, shows clearly the duplicitous nature of political views in the Middle East. It also reiterates the need to give both sides of the argument a voice in the ongoing peace process.

Doubtless some here will argue that a re-election of a president who once proclaimed his wish to “wipe Israel off the map” is counter-productive to any long standing peace in the region. Others will be incensed by what they perceive to be Iranian interference in Lebanon’s sovereignty.

But, as Barack Obama’s oratorical shift demonstrates, all sides of the argument must be consulted in order for any progress in the Middle East to be lasting.

As I’m sure many of you will be aware, Lebanon had its first post-Syrian general elections. They were billed as the closest in a generation and could have proven to be pivotal in the Middle East peace process.

On one side was March 14, a Western-backed coalition lead by the Future Movement’s MP Saad Hariri. On the other, the Hizbollah-dominated March 8 alliance, seen as leaning towards Iran and the foundation of an independent Islamic state.

Fortunately for those of us with fair skin and blue eyes, March 14 won, an outcome that never seemed so straightforward during campaigning and polling. Speaking with entire subjectivity, this is a good thing for Lebanon. It means that the huge amounts of US aid dollars will continue to flow into the country and that the delicate but so far finely-kept peace should be maintained.

I went with the Star’s business reporter, Osama, to Baabda and Aley, both March 8 strongholds and the birthplace of Hizbollah. Osama neglected to tell me we’d be going to Harek Hreik, a deprived and overcrowded suburb of South Beirut. I had been warned, without prompting, on a number of occasions not to go their – Hizbollah supporters are not too accommodating to the press.

We stepped out of the car and were instantly surrounded by frantic young men, some nowhere near the 21 years of age for suffrage here, all clad in bright yellow t-shirts and baseball caps. Dozens raced town the main highway in cars and pick ups, music playing at full volume, trailing angry yellow flags emblazoned with green AK-47s. (Politics in Lebanon is all colourful imagery – yellow for Hizbollah, orange for FPM, white for Amal etc. The supporters have their party’s colour on clothes, furniture – I even saw a yellow Hizbollah cigarette packet cover, replete with a picture of bearded Nasrallah.)

The polling stations were hideously overcrowded; some women had been queuing for four hours in the unremitting heat. People were visibly enraged that their chance to vote was being jeapordised by poor organisation. For both sides to have been engaged in such imflammatory rhetoric in the build up - banging on about necessity of voting – only to arbitrate a shambolic polling process verges on criminal incompetence.

At one particularly congested and feisty polling station I was feeling a little threatened by the sheer volume of angry young men shouting and staring menacingly in our direction. Osama waited until this moment to realise he’d left his phone in the office. “It’s OK,” he said, none-too-convincingly. “I only needed it for some numbers in case we got in trouble.” He trailed off at this point.

We drove up into the foothills surrounding Beirut and in between tiny sandstone villages, framed around pretty churches and mosaiced squares. The contrast from jarring, cloying Baabda couldn’t have been greater, yet voter fervour was just the same.

Read the article here: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=102773

At night, as the results were unofficially announced, I was sharing a taxi with six other men; town is so quiet it was about the only service I saw all day. I headed back to the apartment and sat on the roof as Beirut reflected on the day’s events. The pock-pock of distant celebratory gunfire was all that permeated the silence.

I can’t really begin to describe Beirut. It is the most daunting, confusing, exciting, thrilling and challenging place I’ve ever been to. From the Lebanese Army officers who strut around checkpoints with AK-47s cocked to the 300 car political rallies that cruise down Gemmayzeh street beeping their horns when you are trying to sleep, Beirut is a taxing city.

The flat I am staying in is right next to an apartment block whose walls are pockmarked with civil war bullet holes.

But Beirut is also a city of tolerance, a city where people know how to live. I have been to so many amazing places, bars, shwarmah outlets and cafes. A friend and colleague perhaps summed it up best by saying, “Beirut can be anything you want it to be. If you want Paris, it’s here. If you want Arab culture, it’s here. If you want luxury hotels and shops, they are here.”

“If you don’t enjoy Beirut, you are doing it wrong.”

I have been thrown into the deep end of work with my first assignment involving speaking to youth voters at the city’s two main universities, AUB and LAU. The range of political affiliations, erudition and enthusiasm is both confusing and overwhelming.

A March 14 supporter, who I met beneath a wysteria plant, heavy with flowers, in AUB, saw me in Faysals, a jibni outlet late last night. I sat and ate flatbread as he and his friend showed me videos of Hizbollah and Future Movement forces shooting at one another last year on Rue Hamra, a street which I had been walking down less than an hour ago.

“This is not a movie. This is Lebanon,” he responds to my face of stupid astonishment.

I will try to post something a little more substantial on my day off tomorrow. There will be a 9pm curfew and everything is closing all of Sunday (except the trusty Daily Star!) for voting. I will be buying supplies of water and beer – you can never be too careful…

On Sunday I will be traveling to a District of East Beirut, Baabda, with an Arab journalistcumreporter, Osama. Baabda is key state, with the outcome of the entire election potentially hinging on how much ground March 8 can gain there.

I urge you to watch this on TV, or at the Daily Star. This could be a new chapter in the long and rugged book that is Lebanon.