On Sunday, for the first time in nearly a decade, Lebanon held national elections. The results were good for Hizballah, which is now part of a bloc of parties commanding a parliamentary majority. To Tony Badran and Jonathan Schanzer, this victory marks a further step in the transformation of Lebanon into an Iranian satellite:

Hizballah has long had a political and military stranglehold on the Lebanese state. But now, thanks to its ever-expanding military arsenal and control over pockets of territory, coupled with new parliamentary seats captured by its representatives and allies, there can be no denying that the Shiite terrorist group dominates the Lebanese state.

American policymakers attached much significance to these elections, describing them as crucial to advancing two key elements of American policy in Lebanon: preserving the stability of the Lebanese state and strengthening its institutions. But as the elections show, this policy has only stabilized and strengthened the Iranian order in Lebanon, run by Hizballah. . . .

[Furthermore], Lebanon is a headquarters for other elements of Iran’s regional terrorist network. This is a fact the Lebanese interior minister openly acknowledged two years ago when he described Lebanon as “a global terrorist and security operations room.” Lebanon is currently the base for the senior Hamas operative Saleh Arouri, who runs terror operations in the West Bank, and other officials from the Palestinian terrorist group. It is a place where Qais al-Khazali, the commander of the Iraqi Shiite militia Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, meets openly with Hizballah operatives. The same goes for commanders from other deadly Iran-run militias in Syria, like Liwaa al-Baqir. . . .

Lebanon’s terrorism problem isn’t going away. As the election results make painfully clear, Washington’s policy of preserving the political status quo has failed. If anything, it has absolved Lebanon of the terrorist activities conducted on its sovereign soil. Even today, our officials speak about buttressing the country’s institutions, namely the banking sector and the Lebanese military, as a counterweight to Hizballah. . . . The problem is that these institutions are hardly fighting against Iran’s network.

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.