General Michel Suleiman, the head of Lebanon's Army, was yesterday elected the country's President, ending six months of wrangling and growing political tension since the office was vacated in November. His election follows the agreement brokered in Qatar last week by all Lebanon's warring factions, giving Hezbollah a veto over Fuad Siniora's Government and entrenching the power that the Iranian-backed militants established in the streets of west Beirut. The deal, which has the warm backing of the United Nations Security Council, comes after the worst civil violence that Lebanon has seen since the l6-year civil war ended in 1990, and offers some respite for a country that appeared trapped in old animosities and about to slip back into factional violence and economic collapse. It is an eleventh-hour reprieve; but no one should see the deal as anything other than a temporary compromise that entrenches extremism.

As so often, what happens in Lebanon depends largely on wider struggles across the Arab world. The small country is the cockpit where Sunni and Shia, Iran and the West and religious extremists and Arab modernisers fight out their differences. Only a week after President Bush declared in Jerusalem that the Middle East should not appease those who used force, two of the countries most hostile to US interests, Iran and Syria, have made deals that leave them stronger and American influence weaker. Lebanon is central to both. Mr Siniora's reluctant acceptance of Hezbollah in a government of national unity, without disbanding its military wing, entrenches Iranian power in the Arab world. And Syria's readiness to start formal talks with Israel, through Turkish intermediaries, eases the US pressure on President Assad over the presence of Hamas and other Palestinian militants in Damascus, Syria's porous border with Iraq and Syrian involvement in the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister.

The two deals, seemingly separate, are linked. Damascus has felt under growing pressure over Lebanon: both in its funnelling of weapons to Hezbollah and, especially, in desperately trying to avoid indictment by the UN or the Beirut government over Hariri. At the same time it is worried that its close association with Iran is stirring anger at home and within a suspicious Arab world. The Assad Government has been attacked by the country's Sunni majority for the growth of Shia influence in eastern Syria and feels suffocated by Iran's tight embrace. Opening talks with Israel is a clever diversion - just as the prospect of talks with Damascus is a deflection for an embattled Ehud Olmert from domestic pressure in Israel. For Hezbollah and Iran, however, such a move is worrying, especially if the talks lead to a Syrian cut-off of weapons and an expulsion of radical leaders in Damascus. Hezbollah therefore came under strong pressure in Qatar to capitalise on its recent street victories and cut a deal now, while it is militarily strong.

Amid these swirling pressures, General Suleiman will have a tough job to hold his country together. His success in holding together the Army - at the price of refusing to disarm Hezbollah militants - gives him nominal support from all sides. Whether this is enough to restore calm enough to allow Lebanon to continue its political and economic reconstruction remains to be seen.