Well, it looks like the government formally revoked the two boneheaded decisions that sparked this round of boxing, so I suppose this is a good time to draw up an interim score card. There are a lot more losers than winners on it.
Biggest loser: Lebanon. It'll be a while 'til they get the tourist trade back, after this little show. It's re-established its reputation as the only country in the world where you can go for a swim in the sea in the morning, go ski on the mountains in the afternoon, and come back to the capital for some urban warfare in the evening.
Big loser: Walid Jumblatt And His Druze Militiamen. (Did you know there was a London blues group of that name?) His fighters were routed, he was reduced to begging for his life through his worst rival, and the consensus appears to be that he's the designated scapegoat. If he has any sense (which he doesn't), he'll retire to Mukhtara to lick his wounds, and attempt another comeback in a year or two, if he lives that long.
Big loser: the Sinioura government. They've made it clear that they're unable to resolve the political crisis gripping the country, or indeed prevent it from sliding into civil war. They're basically lame ducks, and the sooner they step down the better. Shame, that -- his heart is in the right place. I would really have wanted them to succeed.
Loser: the Hariri clan and their Mustaqbal movement. The Sinioura government is their party, and it's over. That means they're well on their way to the opposition. Perhaps they'll do better there.
Loser: Western interests and the USA. The Sinioura government and the Hariri boys are our guys in Lebanon. They're down, we're down.
Loser: Saudi Arabia. The Hariri clan are their guys too, and they lose with them.
Loser: Hezbollah. The government overplayed their hand with those dumb decisions, but so did Hezbollah. A week ago, they had a lot of sympathizers and even supporters among Sunnis and Christians as well as Shi'ites. Those ranks have been thinned a lot. The political pressure for them to disarm is far stronger now than pre-crisis, both internally and internationally, and they're a lot more isolated. Their heroic aura among non-Lebanese, non Shi'ite Arabs will also have dissipated: they suddenly got a stark reminder that the Hezb is a Shi'ite sectarian group close to Iran, not a representative of the Arab world's glorious resistance against Zionism.
Loser: Michel Aoun and his Free Patriotic Movement. His policy has been predicated on the assumption that Hezbollah will behave itself and evolve into something of a normal political party. It didn't. This means that the bottom sort of fell out of his platform. He'll invent a new one in no time flat, though, so his was a comparatively minor loss.
Loser: Iran. Hezbollah's freedom of movement will be much more constrained now, and Iran's influence goes with it. For Iran, Hezbollah is a pistol pointed at Israel, and now that its attention is focused inside Lebanon, it's a lot less useful as a pawn on the Middle Eastern chessboard.
Winner, with qualifications: Hezbollah. They lost on the political side, but they reminded everybody just who runs the show in Lebanon. That means that it looks a lot like they'll get what they wanted when it comes to the new government and responsibility in it. It may turn out to be something of a Pyrrhic victory, though, given their position in the "Loser" column above. We'll see what happens next.
Winners, with qualifications: Talal Arslan and Wiam Wahhab. Druze politics is something of a zero-sum game, which means that if Jumblatt is down, Arslan and Wahhab are up. However, I'm 100% certain that the Hezbollah parade march invasion of the Druze heartland seriously pissed off people there. This means that once the dust settles, the positions could reverse quite quickly.
Winner: Samir Geagea. He's Aoun's main rival, and managed to keep away from the fray rather nicely, despite his connections to the government. Maronite politics are like Druze politics too: what Aoun loses, Geagea wins.
Status unknown: Amin Gemayel. On the one hand, he profits from Aoun's loss, but he's also tainted by the government's failure. Jury's very much out on this one.
Big winner: Michel Sleiman. The army came out of this smelling like a rose, and Michel Sleiman is looking more presidential by the day. (Weird how that can happen simply by doing essentially... nothing.) Let's hope he gets elected quick and he uses some of that political capital to hammer through some sort of national unity government/accord; in fact, IMO that's pretty much the last, best hope for the country.
Biggest winner by far: Israel. Hezbollah will have its hands full with the internal situation for the foreseeable future, so they won't be worrying about any yellow-and-green Katyushas, or kidnappings, either. And all without lifting a finger. This was definitely the best 60th birthday present Israel could ever hope for under these circumstances. (It's this sort of unintended consequence that sparks all the conspiracy theories in the Middle East -- Hariri's movement already insinuated that Israel provided cover to Hezbollah for its maneuvers against the government. Wouldn't that be a trip?)
I wonder what the result of the next round will be. This isn't the status quo ante; it just looks like it. The rules have changed, the power relations have shifted, and we're entering unknown territory. Let's just hope that it'll be chess rather than boxing for more than just a few days, weeks, or months.