While in Saudi Arabia last Saturday, Saad Hariri abruptly announced his resignation as prime minister of Lebanon, citing Iranian meddling in his country’s affairs. Hariri came to office as a leader of anti-Iranian forces, but since then he had allowed Tehran’s proxy Hizballah—which assassinated his father—to expand its influence over Lebanon. Hanin Ghaddar explains the likely consequences:

[T]he fact that the resignation happened in Riyadh carries a regional dimension that could open Lebanon up to both the Iranian-Saudi conflict—which escalated this weekend after the Saudis intercepted a missile fired on Riyadh from Yemen and characterized it as an act of war by Iran—and U.S. efforts to contain Tehran’s ambitions in the Middle East. . . .

As for what happens next, one of several scenarios could unfold. Under the constitution, President Aoun is supposed to call for parliamentary consultations to pick the next premier. . . . [But Hizballah] does not have the necessary quorum in the current parliament to choose a new prime minister—in fact, no party does. Some fear that Hizballah will resort to assassinations in order to secure the quorum. Whatever happens, the interregnum will be thorny. . . .

These problems, coupled with the possibility of more forceful interference by Saudi Arabia and Iran, mean that Lebanon could move even faster toward political and economic crisis. Accordingly, the international community should respond to Hariri’s resignation with a coordinated plan aimed at two goals: ensuring the country’s stability, and confronting Hizballah to make sure it cannot use the void to its advantage. . . .

Supporting anti-Hizballah candidates or pushing to change the electoral law could both prove helpful. But elections are unlikely to be held on time unless the international community keeps the country from succumbing to chaos and ensures that the Iran-Saudi war does not escalate into armed clashes inside Lebanon. Political voids and chaos have only strengthened Hizballah and weakened the state since 2005, so they are hardly a recipe for countering the group today.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.