Lebanon dialogue skewed by Hezbollah power play

By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent - Analysis

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Any deal among rival Lebanese leaders invited to Qatar for talks to defuse Lebanon's crisis will reflect the new power equation imposed by Hezbollah's military punishment of its U.S.-backed foes last week.

High-level Arab League mediators announced in Beirut on Thursday that pro-government factions and the Hezbollah-led opposition had agreed to meet in Doha on Friday to seek to break their country's political deadlock.

"The dialogue has good prospects for the simple reason that the government doesn't have many options at this point," said Oussama Safa, head of the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies.

The Arab mediators flew to Beirut on Wednesday to try to halt the bloodiest fighting among Lebanese since the 1975-90 civil war. At least 81 people were killed and 250 wounded.

The conflict is linked to a wider contest pitting the United States and Saudi Arabia against Iran and Syria, which both back Hezbollah, a powerful Shi'ite Islamist group determined to keep its arms to fight Israel -- to the alarm of many other Lebanese.

Even if a deal is patched up in Doha, it will not heal deep rifts over Hezbollah's arsenal or competing visions of Lebanon's destiny: a country mobilised for open-ended "resistance" or a Western-leaning one focused on business, tourism and pleasure.

The talks will cover electing a president, forming a national unity government and revising the electoral law -- issues at the heart of an 18-month-old political stalemate.

The two camps have already agreed that army chief Michel Suleiman should fill the presidency, vacant since November, and seem close to consensus on an electoral law for next year's parliamentary polls. Until now, deadlock has persisted over the opposition's demand for veto power in a national unity cabinet.