The winners in Lebanon

"The Lebanese people voted Sunday and Iran's mullahs lost," said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. The U.S.-supported "March 14" coalition boosted its parliamentary majority by one seat, and Hezbollah—the terrorist "Party of God" underwritten and armed by Tehran—lost a seat. This shows why President Obama should follow the example of George W. Bush by making the promotion of democracy a priority as he reaches out to the Muslim world.

It's tempting to read too much into the results of the Lebanese election, said Thomas Friedman in The New York Times, but it was encouraging to see "moderates stand their ground and win somewhere—with ballots, not bullets, no less." And judging by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's strikingly conciliatory concession speech, even Iran's puppet knows "there is a power in all those people, all the little old ladies, who voted against" the vision of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and for the vision of President Obama.

"All of this will reinforce the standing of Mr. Obama," said The Washington Post in an editorial, whose closely watched speech in Cairo last week "was aimed at swaying opinion in Muslim countries away from extremists" like Nasrallah, Ahmadinejad, and Osama bin Laden. But this should also challenge Obama's view that "elections alone do not make true democracy," as he put it in Cairo. Let's hope that this vote serves as a reminder of their value.

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