the human province

This seems to be shaping up to be a full-scale coup d'état by Hezbollah with the support of the army. It looks like they're going piece by piece. Future was first, now the PSP is being taken in the Chouf, and I imagine the Lebanese Forces in the Christian sectors will be next.

The rest of the Lebanese parties were no match for Hezbollah, but when you throw in the army, what can you expect? Hariri and Joumblatt seem to have agreed not to fight, probably to save the bloodshed that would not have stopped the coup in any case. So they've agreed to go quietly in exchange for there not being a battle to which Future and PSP partisans would have gone like lambs to the slaughter.

The army seems to have cut a deal with Hezbollah, but it's hard to say what they could have done in any case, since they're so much weaker than the Party of God. So the current government will most likely be forced to resign, Suleiman will be appointed as president, and someone pliable will be appointed to be Prime Minister. Things will be like before 2005, except that instead of taking marching orders from Damascus, the new government will answer to Harat Hreik.

Yesterday, I spent a good part of the day in Hamra, where SSNP thugs were still armed and around. They broke up a group of unarmed neighborhood residents (most of whom were with Future) by shooting in the air and shouting. The night before a 16-year-old boy had been killed while delivering a narguileh for the shop he worked for. When they finally had a hard time getting the group of the boy's friends, family and neighbors to go inside despite plenty of shooting, they left. Shortly afterward, the Army finally showed up. The SSNP gunmen were going around Hamra without any challenge from the Army.

Today, things seem to be much better in West Beirut (although I haven't been there today), but fighting has spread all over the country, with Hezbollah apparently shelling a Druze village and opposition Druze forces fighting the PSP in Aley. Clashes are also going on in in Shweifat.

Add this to the fighting in Tripoli, and the death toll is nearly 40 now. In the words of Yeats:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

I never thought I'd say this, but there was part of Samir Geagea's speech this afternoon that I agree with. He said that the use of Hezbollah's weapons has delegitimized their very existence. I tend to agree with this idea, because Hezbollah has decided to use its weapons in an internal dispute between Lebanese actors. (Here, it's important to remember that the myth that Hezbollah has never been part of inter-Lebanese fighting fails to include when Amal and Hezbollah fought each the during the civil war.) What has happened is that the March 14 government made a decision that Hezbollah disagreed with, and in reaction to this, they took up arms and occupied half of Beirut. This means that the weapons whose sole purpose is supposed to deter Israeli aggression and defend Lebanon has been used as a blunt political tool to try to force the government to resign, or at the very least, send it a far-from-subtle message. 

The line being taken by the opposition now (at least as far as the talking heads of al-Manar are concerned) is that Hezbollah has helped the state put down militias (namely Mustaqbal, or the Future movement). This position fails to take into consideration, for example, the fact that there are still armed militia members of Amal and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party walking around West Beirut.

Either armed militias are illegal or they aren't. What's happened is that the Army seems to have passively taken the side of Hezbollah, which means that their legitimacy will be decreased or destroyed in the eyes of other Lebanese communities, especially the Sunnis in Saida and Tripoli. It has also sent the message that the most effective political tool is military force. I imagine, then, that the Sunnis in Saida and Tripoli, the pro-government Christians and the Druze loyal to Walid Jumblatt have likely decided that they can no longer count on the Army to be an impartial arbiter for the state. This will surely lead to increased militia training and arming. It wouldn't surprise me if the lesson that the Lebanese Forces and the PSP have taken from the defeat of Mustaqbal (probably the weakest of the pro-government parties/militias, if one of the nastier ones on a local neighborhood level) is that they should be prepared for more of the same in the not-so-distant future.

So where does this leave us? Despite rumors earlier today, it doesn't look like Saniora, or anyone else, will resign from the government. So what? There's still no president, and the fundamental dysfunction of the Lebanese state has only been highlighted, not solved. If this all ends with Hezbollah and its allied militias pulling back to their territory in the next day or so, leaving a humiliating message for the other parties and their militias, we'll be back to where we started. Back to where we started, except a big part of the population will have lost faith in the idea that Hezbollah and its allies can be dealt with within the norms of a democratic system.

Since there is no way that any of these groups can compete with Hezbollah's military forces, look for them to embrace proxies. This might include the Sunnis accepting al-Qaeda militants and other groups hoping for more Israeli intervention. I'm sure that after the disaster that was the war in 2006, the Israeli establishment wouldn't mind taking advantage of the situation for  rematch. In any case, what this situation hasn't done is foster an atmosphere where either side feels like it can compromise. If anything, this whole situation has pushed March 14 further into its corner and inflated the arrogance and confidence of Hezbollah and its allies in the country and abroad. Neither of which bodes well for peace or stability in Lebanon.

Amin Gemayel, whom I can't stand, called Hezbollah's victory a Pyrrhic one (actually, he said it in French, the snooty bastard). I tend to think that, on a national level and in the long term, he's probably right. In any case, it's enough to turn some Lebanese into bitter Mercutios.

The rumor I've been hearing now, to the glee of some Aounist Christians in my neighborhood, is that Prime Minister Saniora has resigned. I can't confirm this, but it really begs the question of what he would resign from. Premiership of what? There is no government. The military is sitting around doing absolutely nothing, which may be best for the lives of the soldiers but is disastrous for the life of the state. I walked down to the eastern side of the bridge that connects east and west Beirut, and it was being guarded by a couple of tanks and APCs and some soldiers. The latter were sitting around shooting the shit and listening to the radio. One was sleeping in the shadow of his APC. I've also seen it reported that Jumblatt was forced to flee his home in Clemenceau under the protection of the Army.

Despite the fact that the army is much weaker than Hezbollah and would have lost any real shooting match, I keep wondering to myself if one of the reasons the Army is staying out is because of the head of the Army, Michel Suleiman. He had been put forward as a compromise candidate for president. Now that Hezbollah is calling the shots, it will be interesting to see who they put forward as the president, or if they appoint anyone at all.

It obviously won't be Aoun, which means that he's pretty much outlived his usefulness to the opposition cum ruling party, due to the fact that he was only helpful to them so long as they were working within the system. Now that they have taken matters into their own hands, they really don't need him anymore. I don't think that Hezbollah would even try to put someone Franjieh into the presidential palace, so that pretty much only leaves Suleiman. Maybe he cut a deal with Hezbollah to stay out of the fighting in exchange for the presidency.

But even the question of who will be the president may be putting the cart before the horse. It isn't clear at all now what Hezbollah will do. Will there be a fight between the pro-Government Christian militias (Lebanese Forces and Phalangists) and Hezbollah? Will Hezbollah install a new government of its choosing based on the old system? Will they install a government composed purely of Hezbollah members? Will they call for new elections? Your guess is as good as mine.

What's sure though, is this: those who may have have been somewhat sympathetic to the underlying principles of "the Resistance" and Hezbollah's part in that movement despite (being uncomfortable with the idea of an explicitly religious party) are likely to be turned off by the last few days' events. The chorus has always been the Hezbollah would never turn its weapons inward, but it has done that now. At the end of the day, Hezbollah went outside of the rules of the game. That game may have been frustrating and often paralyzing, but at least it was nominally democratic. Now, even if they call for new elections, Hezbollah has broken the rules of the game by resorting to violence to achieve a political goal. A lot of people won't forgive or forget this, and there will be even more people who will never be able to trust the party of God to follow the rules of the (at least nominally) democratic system, because they have, for all intents and purposes, overthrown the government by force.

UPDATE: I just saw Aoun on television assuring viewers that no one would be persecuted. Maybe he didn't get the memo, but Hezbollah seized power without him or his help. He looks more like a remora sucking with all his might to be pulled along with Hezbollah, feasting on what's left of the already feeble Lebanese state.

The war is continuing, but my neighborhood looks like it's any other Saturday morning. The upscale carft shop, L'Artisan du Liban, is apparently open; there is a couple walking a dog; traffic is coming through; and Ethiopian maids are beating carpets and washing windows.

Meanwhile, in Hamra, Hezbollah took all of one night to defeat the Mostaqbal (Future, the pro-government Sunni militia) and take over the area. There are now (much more professional) Hezbollah militiamen running the areas. The Future movement's television channel was shut down, along with its newspaper and radio station. According to my friends, the army and Internal Security Forces (the latter trained by the US and loyal to Future's Hariri) are nowhere to be found.

There had been rumors about Mustaqbal training in the last year or two. I suppose we can put that notion to rest, because it only took a night for them to get their asses handed to them by Hezbollah.

So what now? Jumblatt made this point yesterday, saying that Hezbollah could easily occupy all of Beirut, but then what? I'm wondering what's going to happen to East Beirut. Are the Christians going to (or going to be allowed to) stay out of it all together? Will Hezbollah wait until Mustaqbal has been completely routed and then aim their sites at Christian Lebanese Forces and Phalangists? Will Hezbollah use its new-found posiiton of power to negotiate, or will it just be the government now?

For the moment, I can't tell that we're in a civil war by looking out the window, but had I left work an hour later yesterday, I'd probably be holed up in my office or at friends' watching street fighting all across the neighborhood that has traditionally been the safest place in Beirut.  

UPDATE: Artisan du Liban isn't actually open, but the building it's in is. Besides grocery stores, though, the Mana'eesh places are open, as are the hair salon, antique shop and carpet repair shop by my place. 

Also, it's been pointed out to me that it's Friday today, which goes to show you how much it feels like a Saturday today here.

The garbage men stop coming:

The 8 o'clock news is presented in a flack jacket:

I don't have a picture for this one, but another way you might know that you're in a civil war if there's no more bread at your local stores...

I'm watching Hassan Nasrallah's speech right now on television, and it's very contradictory. One moment he says that this is war and that the government's decision to get rid of their man at the airport and to declare the Party of God's newly discovered independent telecommunications network illegal was a declaration of war. He says that Hezbollah's weapons will never be turned inward, but then he says that he will cut that hand off that tries to touch those weapons. (Here it's important to remember that the telecommunication network has been newly classified as a resistance weapon.) I never thought I'd say this, but Nasrallah kind of reminded me of Rumsfeld today.

Sometimes I wonder if in 1975, people knew that they were in a civil war. I have a feeling that long after the day that we now recognize as the start of the war, many people didn't know they were in one. Everyone's talking about whether or not this means war. Somehow I've got the feeling that we're already in a civil war, but we just haven't realized it yet.

UPDATE: There's something decidedly disconcerting about hearing the RPG explode in the distance right before you hear it on the television. MY neighborhood is calm right now; the opposing Christian factions have so far kept their distance from the fighting, but I can hear automatic gun fire and RPGs in the distance. 1840, 1958, 1975, 2008? Plus ça change...

What was supposed to be a general strike over the minimum wage (the demonstration for which was finally canceled) has turned in to street clashes between Sunni and Shi'a. As usual. I crossed over to West Beirut this morning and back just now by the port road, and besides the empty streets and smoke in the air from burnt tires up by the tent city, nothing was out of the ordinary. Watching the news, however, I can see that at one point the highway was blocked with burned out tires.

My friend S, on the other hand, lives in Corniche el-Mazra'a, where there has been fighting most of the day. She just told me that they haven't seen any army troops in over an hour, just militiamen from Amal and Mostaqbal (Future Movement) carrying guns and RPG launchers. They don't have any electricity and have had to leave the living room, because the windows are too big. There have been other clashes in the usual places: Cola, Museitbeh, Tariq el-Jadida, Tayounneh and Ras el-Naba'a, amongst others.

It's really depressing to me how even an issue like raising the minimum wage, which should have appeal across sectarian lines, inevitably turns into an excuse for thugs from vying political parties to fight in the street. 

The opposition led by Hezbollah and General Aoun held a general strike yesterday that included blocking the road to the airport and degenerated into street clashes between pro-government and opposition supporters. What this means is that Sunni and Shia groups have been clashing, as well as Christian supporters of Geagea (pro-government) and Aoun (opposition):

Violent clashes erupted across the country, with two areas witnessing the return of old "fault lines" from the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War.

The Shiite supporters of Hizbullah and Amal clashed with the Future Movement's Sunni supporters in the predominantly Sunni area of Corniche al-Mazraa. Stone-throwing and fistfights injured dozens of people and wreaked damage on cars and private property.

At the same time, supporters of Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun clashed with followers of Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea in several predominantly Christian areas, in fights recalling the leaders' bitter rivalry in the late 1980s.

Lebanese officials were quoted as warning that the Aoun-Geagea struggle may turn into "a war of elimination."

This is obviously bad news for Lebanon, and I'm surprised that it's taking so long to come up with a compromise package deal that would get the government up and running again as national unity government. Of course there are a lot of things to be settled, including the presidency, expanding the cabinet, the Hariri tribunal and the Paris III economic deal, but I don't think that these are unbridgeable gaps.

Hezbollah has said that yesterday was a taste of what it's capable of, and I don't think anyone doubts their resolve or power.

This seems to be shaping up to be a full-scale coup d'état by Hezbollah with the support of the army. It looks like they're going piece by piece. Future was first, now the PSP is being taken in the Chouf, and I imagine the Lebanese Forces in the Christian sectors will be next.

The rest of the Lebanese parties were no match for Hezbollah, but when you throw in the army, what can you expect? Hariri and Joumblatt seem to have agreed not to fight, probably to save the bloodshed that would not have stopped the coup in any case. So they've agreed to go quietly in exchange for there not being a battle to which Future and PSP partisans would have gone like lambs to the slaughter.

The army seems to have cut a deal with Hezbollah, but it's hard to say what they could have done in any case, since they're so much weaker than the Party of God. So the current government will most likely be forced to resign, Suleiman will be appointed as president, and someone pliable will be appointed to be Prime Minister. Things will be like before 2005, except that instead of taking marching orders from Damascus, the new government will answer to Harat Hreik.

Yesterday, I spent a good part of the day in Hamra, where SSNP thugs were still armed and around. They broke up a group of unarmed neighborhood residents (most of whom were with Future) by shooting in the air and shouting. The night before a 16-year-old boy had been killed while delivering a narguileh for the shop he worked for. When they finally had a hard time getting the group of the boy's friends, family and neighbors to go inside despite plenty of shooting, they left. Shortly afterward, the Army finally showed up. The SSNP gunmen were going around Hamra without any challenge from the Army.

Today, things seem to be much better in West Beirut (although I haven't been there today), but fighting has spread all over the country, with Hezbollah apparently shelling a Druze village and opposition Druze forces fighting the PSP in Aley. Clashes are also going on in in Shweifat.

Add this to the fighting in Tripoli, and the death toll is nearly 40 now. In the words of Yeats:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

I never thought I'd say this, but there was part of Samir Geagea's speech this afternoon that I agree with. He said that the use of Hezbollah's weapons has delegitimized their very existence. I tend to agree with this idea, because Hezbollah has decided to use its weapons in an internal dispute between Lebanese actors. (Here, it's important to remember that the myth that Hezbollah has never been part of inter-Lebanese fighting fails to include when Amal and Hezbollah fought each the during the civil war.) What has happened is that the March 14 government made a decision that Hezbollah disagreed with, and in reaction to this, they took up arms and occupied half of Beirut. This means that the weapons whose sole purpose is supposed to deter Israeli aggression and defend Lebanon has been used as a blunt political tool to try to force the government to resign, or at the very least, send it a far-from-subtle message. 

The line being taken by the opposition now (at least as far as the talking heads of al-Manar are concerned) is that Hezbollah has helped the state put down militias (namely Mustaqbal, or the Future movement). This position fails to take into consideration, for example, the fact that there are still armed militia members of Amal and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party walking around West Beirut.

Either armed militias are illegal or they aren't. What's happened is that the Army seems to have passively taken the side of Hezbollah, which means that their legitimacy will be decreased or destroyed in the eyes of other Lebanese communities, especially the Sunnis in Saida and Tripoli. It has also sent the message that the most effective political tool is military force. I imagine, then, that the Sunnis in Saida and Tripoli, the pro-government Christians and the Druze loyal to Walid Jumblatt have likely decided that they can no longer count on the Army to be an impartial arbiter for the state. This will surely lead to increased militia training and arming. It wouldn't surprise me if the lesson that the Lebanese Forces and the PSP have taken from the defeat of Mustaqbal (probably the weakest of the pro-government parties/militias, if one of the nastier ones on a local neighborhood level) is that they should be prepared for more of the same in the not-so-distant future.

So where does this leave us? Despite rumors earlier today, it doesn't look like Saniora, or anyone else, will resign from the government. So what? There's still no president, and the fundamental dysfunction of the Lebanese state has only been highlighted, not solved. If this all ends with Hezbollah and its allied militias pulling back to their territory in the next day or so, leaving a humiliating message for the other parties and their militias, we'll be back to where we started. Back to where we started, except a big part of the population will have lost faith in the idea that Hezbollah and its allies can be dealt with within the norms of a democratic system.

Since there is no way that any of these groups can compete with Hezbollah's military forces, look for them to embrace proxies. This might include the Sunnis accepting al-Qaeda militants and other groups hoping for more Israeli intervention. I'm sure that after the disaster that was the war in 2006, the Israeli establishment wouldn't mind taking advantage of the situation for  rematch. In any case, what this situation hasn't done is foster an atmosphere where either side feels like it can compromise. If anything, this whole situation has pushed March 14 further into its corner and inflated the arrogance and confidence of Hezbollah and its allies in the country and abroad. Neither of which bodes well for peace or stability in Lebanon.

Amin Gemayel, whom I can't stand, called Hezbollah's victory a Pyrrhic one (actually, he said it in French, the snooty bastard). I tend to think that, on a national level and in the long term, he's probably right. In any case, it's enough to turn some Lebanese into bitter Mercutios.

The rumor I've been hearing now, to the glee of some Aounist Christians in my neighborhood, is that Prime Minister Saniora has resigned. I can't confirm this, but it really begs the question of what he would resign from. Premiership of what? There is no government. The military is sitting around doing absolutely nothing, which may be best for the lives of the soldiers but is disastrous for the life of the state. I walked down to the eastern side of the bridge that connects east and west Beirut, and it was being guarded by a couple of tanks and APCs and some soldiers. The latter were sitting around shooting the shit and listening to the radio. One was sleeping in the shadow of his APC. I've also seen it reported that Jumblatt was forced to flee his home in Clemenceau under the protection of the Army.

Despite the fact that the army is much weaker than Hezbollah and would have lost any real shooting match, I keep wondering to myself if one of the reasons the Army is staying out is because of the head of the Army, Michel Suleiman. He had been put forward as a compromise candidate for president. Now that Hezbollah is calling the shots, it will be interesting to see who they put forward as the president, or if they appoint anyone at all.

It obviously won't be Aoun, which means that he's pretty much outlived his usefulness to the opposition cum ruling party, due to the fact that he was only helpful to them so long as they were working within the system. Now that they have taken matters into their own hands, they really don't need him anymore. I don't think that Hezbollah would even try to put someone Franjieh into the presidential palace, so that pretty much only leaves Suleiman. Maybe he cut a deal with Hezbollah to stay out of the fighting in exchange for the presidency.

But even the question of who will be the president may be putting the cart before the horse. It isn't clear at all now what Hezbollah will do. Will there be a fight between the pro-Government Christian militias (Lebanese Forces and Phalangists) and Hezbollah? Will Hezbollah install a new government of its choosing based on the old system? Will they install a government composed purely of Hezbollah members? Will they call for new elections? Your guess is as good as mine.

What's sure though, is this: those who may have have been somewhat sympathetic to the underlying principles of "the Resistance" and Hezbollah's part in that movement despite (being uncomfortable with the idea of an explicitly religious party) are likely to be turned off by the last few days' events. The chorus has always been the Hezbollah would never turn its weapons inward, but it has done that now. At the end of the day, Hezbollah went outside of the rules of the game. That game may have been frustrating and often paralyzing, but at least it was nominally democratic. Now, even if they call for new elections, Hezbollah has broken the rules of the game by resorting to violence to achieve a political goal. A lot of people won't forgive or forget this, and there will be even more people who will never be able to trust the party of God to follow the rules of the (at least nominally) democratic system, because they have, for all intents and purposes, overthrown the government by force.

UPDATE: I just saw Aoun on television assuring viewers that no one would be persecuted. Maybe he didn't get the memo, but Hezbollah seized power without him or his help. He looks more like a remora sucking with all his might to be pulled along with Hezbollah, feasting on what's left of the already feeble Lebanese state.

The war is continuing, but my neighborhood looks like it's any other Saturday morning. The upscale carft shop, L'Artisan du Liban, is apparently open; there is a couple walking a dog; traffic is coming through; and Ethiopian maids are beating carpets and washing windows.

Meanwhile, in Hamra, Hezbollah took all of one night to defeat the Mostaqbal (Future, the pro-government Sunni militia) and take over the area. There are now (much more professional) Hezbollah militiamen running the areas. The Future movement's television channel was shut down, along with its newspaper and radio station. According to my friends, the army and Internal Security Forces (the latter trained by the US and loyal to Future's Hariri) are nowhere to be found.

There had been rumors about Mustaqbal training in the last year or two. I suppose we can put that notion to rest, because it only took a night for them to get their asses handed to them by Hezbollah.

So what now? Jumblatt made this point yesterday, saying that Hezbollah could easily occupy all of Beirut, but then what? I'm wondering what's going to happen to East Beirut. Are the Christians going to (or going to be allowed to) stay out of it all together? Will Hezbollah wait until Mustaqbal has been completely routed and then aim their sites at Christian Lebanese Forces and Phalangists? Will Hezbollah use its new-found posiiton of power to negotiate, or will it just be the government now?

For the moment, I can't tell that we're in a civil war by looking out the window, but had I left work an hour later yesterday, I'd probably be holed up in my office or at friends' watching street fighting all across the neighborhood that has traditionally been the safest place in Beirut.  

UPDATE: Artisan du Liban isn't actually open, but the building it's in is. Besides grocery stores, though, the Mana'eesh places are open, as are the hair salon, antique shop and carpet repair shop by my place. 

Also, it's been pointed out to me that it's Friday today, which goes to show you how much it feels like a Saturday today here.

The garbage men stop coming:

The 8 o'clock news is presented in a flack jacket:

I don't have a picture for this one, but another way you might know that you're in a civil war if there's no more bread at your local stores...

I'm watching Hassan Nasrallah's speech right now on television, and it's very contradictory. One moment he says that this is war and that the government's decision to get rid of their man at the airport and to declare the Party of God's newly discovered independent telecommunications network illegal was a declaration of war. He says that Hezbollah's weapons will never be turned inward, but then he says that he will cut that hand off that tries to touch those weapons. (Here it's important to remember that the telecommunication network has been newly classified as a resistance weapon.) I never thought I'd say this, but Nasrallah kind of reminded me of Rumsfeld today.

Sometimes I wonder if in 1975, people knew that they were in a civil war. I have a feeling that long after the day that we now recognize as the start of the war, many people didn't know they were in one. Everyone's talking about whether or not this means war. Somehow I've got the feeling that we're already in a civil war, but we just haven't realized it yet.

UPDATE: There's something decidedly disconcerting about hearing the RPG explode in the distance right before you hear it on the television. MY neighborhood is calm right now; the opposing Christian factions have so far kept their distance from the fighting, but I can hear automatic gun fire and RPGs in the distance. 1840, 1958, 1975, 2008? Plus ça change...

What was supposed to be a general strike over the minimum wage (the demonstration for which was finally canceled) has turned in to street clashes between Sunni and Shi'a. As usual. I crossed over to West Beirut this morning and back just now by the port road, and besides the empty streets and smoke in the air from burnt tires up by the tent city, nothing was out of the ordinary. Watching the news, however, I can see that at one point the highway was blocked with burned out tires.

My friend S, on the other hand, lives in Corniche el-Mazra'a, where there has been fighting most of the day. She just told me that they haven't seen any army troops in over an hour, just militiamen from Amal and Mostaqbal (Future Movement) carrying guns and RPG launchers. They don't have any electricity and have had to leave the living room, because the windows are too big. There have been other clashes in the usual places: Cola, Museitbeh, Tariq el-Jadida, Tayounneh and Ras el-Naba'a, amongst others.

It's really depressing to me how even an issue like raising the minimum wage, which should have appeal across sectarian lines, inevitably turns into an excuse for thugs from vying political parties to fight in the street. 

The opposition led by Hezbollah and General Aoun held a general strike yesterday that included blocking the road to the airport and degenerated into street clashes between pro-government and opposition supporters. What this means is that Sunni and Shia groups have been clashing, as well as Christian supporters of Geagea (pro-government) and Aoun (opposition):

Violent clashes erupted across the country, with two areas witnessing the return of old "fault lines" from the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War.

The Shiite supporters of Hizbullah and Amal clashed with the Future Movement's Sunni supporters in the predominantly Sunni area of Corniche al-Mazraa. Stone-throwing and fistfights injured dozens of people and wreaked damage on cars and private property.

At the same time, supporters of Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun clashed with followers of Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea in several predominantly Christian areas, in fights recalling the leaders' bitter rivalry in the late 1980s.

Lebanese officials were quoted as warning that the Aoun-Geagea struggle may turn into "a war of elimination."

This is obviously bad news for Lebanon, and I'm surprised that it's taking so long to come up with a compromise package deal that would get the government up and running again as national unity government. Of course there are a lot of things to be settled, including the presidency, expanding the cabinet, the Hariri tribunal and the Paris III economic deal, but I don't think that these are unbridgeable gaps.

Hezbollah has said that yesterday was a taste of what it's capable of, and I don't think anyone doubts their resolve or power.

This seems to be shaping up to be a full-scale coup d'état by Hezbollah with the support of the army. It looks like they're going piece by piece. Future was first, now the PSP is being taken in the Chouf, and I imagine the Lebanese Forces in the Christian sectors will be next.

The rest of the Lebanese parties were no match for Hezbollah, but when you throw in the army, what can you expect? Hariri and Joumblatt seem to have agreed not to fight, probably to save the bloodshed that would not have stopped the coup in any case. So they've agreed to go quietly in exchange for there not being a battle to which Future and PSP partisans would have gone like lambs to the slaughter.

The army seems to have cut a deal with Hezbollah, but it's hard to say what they could have done in any case, since they're so much weaker than the Party of God. So the current government will most likely be forced to resign, Suleiman will be appointed as president, and someone pliable will be appointed to be Prime Minister. Things will be like before 2005, except that instead of taking marching orders from Damascus, the new government will answer to Harat Hreik.

Yesterday, I spent a good part of the day in Hamra, where SSNP thugs were still armed and around. They broke up a group of unarmed neighborhood residents (most of whom were with Future) by shooting in the air and shouting. The night before a 16-year-old boy had been killed while delivering a narguileh for the shop he worked for. When they finally had a hard time getting the group of the boy's friends, family and neighbors to go inside despite plenty of shooting, they left. Shortly afterward, the Army finally showed up. The SSNP gunmen were going around Hamra without any challenge from the Army.

Today, things seem to be much better in West Beirut (although I haven't been there today), but fighting has spread all over the country, with Hezbollah apparently shelling a Druze village and opposition Druze forces fighting the PSP in Aley. Clashes are also going on in in Shweifat.

Add this to the fighting in Tripoli, and the death toll is nearly 40 now. In the words of Yeats:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

I never thought I'd say this, but there was part of Samir Geagea's speech this afternoon that I agree with. He said that the use of Hezbollah's weapons has delegitimized their very existence. I tend to agree with this idea, because Hezbollah has decided to use its weapons in an internal dispute between Lebanese actors. (Here, it's important to remember that the myth that Hezbollah has never been part of inter-Lebanese fighting fails to include when Amal and Hezbollah fought each the during the civil war.) What has happened is that the March 14 government made a decision that Hezbollah disagreed with, and in reaction to this, they took up arms and occupied half of Beirut. This means that the weapons whose sole purpose is supposed to deter Israeli aggression and defend Lebanon has been used as a blunt political tool to try to force the government to resign, or at the very least, send it a far-from-subtle message. 

The line being taken by the opposition now (at least as far as the talking heads of al-Manar are concerned) is that Hezbollah has helped the state put down militias (namely Mustaqbal, or the Future movement). This position fails to take into consideration, for example, the fact that there are still armed militia members of Amal and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party walking around West Beirut.

Either armed militias are illegal or they aren't. What's happened is that the Army seems to have passively taken the side of Hezbollah, which means that their legitimacy will be decreased or destroyed in the eyes of other Lebanese communities, especially the Sunnis in Saida and Tripoli. It has also sent the message that the most effective political tool is military force. I imagine, then, that the Sunnis in Saida and Tripoli, the pro-government Christians and the Druze loyal to Walid Jumblatt have likely decided that they can no longer count on the Army to be an impartial arbiter for the state. This will surely lead to increased militia training and arming. It wouldn't surprise me if the lesson that the Lebanese Forces and the PSP have taken from the defeat of Mustaqbal (probably the weakest of the pro-government parties/militias, if one of the nastier ones on a local neighborhood level) is that they should be prepared for more of the same in the not-so-distant future.

So where does this leave us? Despite rumors earlier today, it doesn't look like Saniora, or anyone else, will resign from the government. So what? There's still no president, and the fundamental dysfunction of the Lebanese state has only been highlighted, not solved. If this all ends with Hezbollah and its allied militias pulling back to their territory in the next day or so, leaving a humiliating message for the other parties and their militias, we'll be back to where we started. Back to where we started, except a big part of the population will have lost faith in the idea that Hezbollah and its allies can be dealt with within the norms of a democratic system.

Since there is no way that any of these groups can compete with Hezbollah's military forces, look for them to embrace proxies. This might include the Sunnis accepting al-Qaeda militants and other groups hoping for more Israeli intervention. I'm sure that after the disaster that was the war in 2006, the Israeli establishment wouldn't mind taking advantage of the situation for  rematch. In any case, what this situation hasn't done is foster an atmosphere where either side feels like it can compromise. If anything, this whole situation has pushed March 14 further into its corner and inflated the arrogance and confidence of Hezbollah and its allies in the country and abroad. Neither of which bodes well for peace or stability in Lebanon.

Amin Gemayel, whom I can't stand, called Hezbollah's victory a Pyrrhic one (actually, he said it in French, the snooty bastard). I tend to think that, on a national level and in the long term, he's probably right. In any case, it's enough to turn some Lebanese into bitter Mercutios.

The rumor I've been hearing now, to the glee of some Aounist Christians in my neighborhood, is that Prime Minister Saniora has resigned. I can't confirm this, but it really begs the question of what he would resign from. Premiership of what? There is no government. The military is sitting around doing absolutely nothing, which may be best for the lives of the soldiers but is disastrous for the life of the state. I walked down to the eastern side of the bridge that connects east and west Beirut, and it was being guarded by a couple of tanks and APCs and some soldiers. The latter were sitting around shooting the shit and listening to the radio. One was sleeping in the shadow of his APC. I've also seen it reported that Jumblatt was forced to flee his home in Clemenceau under the protection of the Army.

Despite the fact that the army is much weaker than Hezbollah and would have lost any real shooting match, I keep wondering to myself if one of the reasons the Army is staying out is because of the head of the Army, Michel Suleiman. He had been put forward as a compromise candidate for president. Now that Hezbollah is calling the shots, it will be interesting to see who they put forward as the president, or if they appoint anyone at all.

It obviously won't be Aoun, which means that he's pretty much outlived his usefulness to the opposition cum ruling party, due to the fact that he was only helpful to them so long as they were working within the system. Now that they have taken matters into their own hands, they really don't need him anymore. I don't think that Hezbollah would even try to put someone Franjieh into the presidential palace, so that pretty much only leaves Suleiman. Maybe he cut a deal with Hezbollah to stay out of the fighting in exchange for the presidency.

But even the question of who will be the president may be putting the cart before the horse. It isn't clear at all now what Hezbollah will do. Will there be a fight between the pro-Government Christian militias (Lebanese Forces and Phalangists) and Hezbollah? Will Hezbollah install a new government of its choosing based on the old system? Will they install a government composed purely of Hezbollah members? Will they call for new elections? Your guess is as good as mine.

What's sure though, is this: those who may have have been somewhat sympathetic to the underlying principles of "the Resistance" and Hezbollah's part in that movement despite (being uncomfortable with the idea of an explicitly religious party) are likely to be turned off by the last few days' events. The chorus has always been the Hezbollah would never turn its weapons inward, but it has done that now. At the end of the day, Hezbollah went outside of the rules of the game. That game may have been frustrating and often paralyzing, but at least it was nominally democratic. Now, even if they call for new elections, Hezbollah has broken the rules of the game by resorting to violence to achieve a political goal. A lot of people won't forgive or forget this, and there will be even more people who will never be able to trust the party of God to follow the rules of the (at least nominally) democratic system, because they have, for all intents and purposes, overthrown the government by force.

UPDATE: I just saw Aoun on television assuring viewers that no one would be persecuted. Maybe he didn't get the memo, but Hezbollah seized power without him or his help. He looks more like a remora sucking with all his might to be pulled along with Hezbollah, feasting on what's left of the already feeble Lebanese state.

The war is continuing, but my neighborhood looks like it's any other Saturday morning. The upscale carft shop, L'Artisan du Liban, is apparently open; there is a couple walking a dog; traffic is coming through; and Ethiopian maids are beating carpets and washing windows.

Meanwhile, in Hamra, Hezbollah took all of one night to defeat the Mostaqbal (Future, the pro-government Sunni militia) and take over the area. There are now (much more professional) Hezbollah militiamen running the areas. The Future movement's television channel was shut down, along with its newspaper and radio station. According to my friends, the army and Internal Security Forces (the latter trained by the US and loyal to Future's Hariri) are nowhere to be found.

There had been rumors about Mustaqbal training in the last year or two. I suppose we can put that notion to rest, because it only took a night for them to get their asses handed to them by Hezbollah.

So what now? Jumblatt made this point yesterday, saying that Hezbollah could easily occupy all of Beirut, but then what? I'm wondering what's going to happen to East Beirut. Are the Christians going to (or going to be allowed to) stay out of it all together? Will Hezbollah wait until Mustaqbal has been completely routed and then aim their sites at Christian Lebanese Forces and Phalangists? Will Hezbollah use its new-found posiiton of power to negotiate, or will it just be the government now?

For the moment, I can't tell that we're in a civil war by looking out the window, but had I left work an hour later yesterday, I'd probably be holed up in my office or at friends' watching street fighting all across the neighborhood that has traditionally been the safest place in Beirut.  

UPDATE: Artisan du Liban isn't actually open, but the building it's in is. Besides grocery stores, though, the Mana'eesh places are open, as are the hair salon, antique shop and carpet repair shop by my place. 

Also, it's been pointed out to me that it's Friday today, which goes to show you how much it feels like a Saturday today here.

The garbage men stop coming:

The 8 o'clock news is presented in a flack jacket:

I don't have a picture for this one, but another way you might know that you're in a civil war if there's no more bread at your local stores...

I'm watching Hassan Nasrallah's speech right now on television, and it's very contradictory. One moment he says that this is war and that the government's decision to get rid of their man at the airport and to declare the Party of God's newly discovered independent telecommunications network illegal was a declaration of war. He says that Hezbollah's weapons will never be turned inward, but then he says that he will cut that hand off that tries to touch those weapons. (Here it's important to remember that the telecommunication network has been newly classified as a resistance weapon.) I never thought I'd say this, but Nasrallah kind of reminded me of Rumsfeld today.

Sometimes I wonder if in 1975, people knew that they were in a civil war. I have a feeling that long after the day that we now recognize as the start of the war, many people didn't know they were in one. Everyone's talking about whether or not this means war. Somehow I've got the feeling that we're already in a civil war, but we just haven't realized it yet.

UPDATE: There's something decidedly disconcerting about hearing the RPG explode in the distance right before you hear it on the television. MY neighborhood is calm right now; the opposing Christian factions have so far kept their distance from the fighting, but I can hear automatic gun fire and RPGs in the distance. 1840, 1958, 1975, 2008? Plus ça change...

What was supposed to be a general strike over the minimum wage (the demonstration for which was finally canceled) has turned in to street clashes between Sunni and Shi'a. As usual. I crossed over to West Beirut this morning and back just now by the port road, and besides the empty streets and smoke in the air from burnt tires up by the tent city, nothing was out of the ordinary. Watching the news, however, I can see that at one point the highway was blocked with burned out tires.

My friend S, on the other hand, lives in Corniche el-Mazra'a, where there has been fighting most of the day. She just told me that they haven't seen any army troops in over an hour, just militiamen from Amal and Mostaqbal (Future Movement) carrying guns and RPG launchers. They don't have any electricity and have had to leave the living room, because the windows are too big. There have been other clashes in the usual places: Cola, Museitbeh, Tariq el-Jadida, Tayounneh and Ras el-Naba'a, amongst others.

It's really depressing to me how even an issue like raising the minimum wage, which should have appeal across sectarian lines, inevitably turns into an excuse for thugs from vying political parties to fight in the street. 

The opposition led by Hezbollah and General Aoun held a general strike yesterday that included blocking the road to the airport and degenerated into street clashes between pro-government and opposition supporters. What this means is that Sunni and Shia groups have been clashing, as well as Christian supporters of Geagea (pro-government) and Aoun (opposition):

Violent clashes erupted across the country, with two areas witnessing the return of old "fault lines" from the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War.

The Shiite supporters of Hizbullah and Amal clashed with the Future Movement's Sunni supporters in the predominantly Sunni area of Corniche al-Mazraa. Stone-throwing and fistfights injured dozens of people and wreaked damage on cars and private property.

At the same time, supporters of Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun clashed with followers of Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea in several predominantly Christian areas, in fights recalling the leaders' bitter rivalry in the late 1980s.

Lebanese officials were quoted as warning that the Aoun-Geagea struggle may turn into "a war of elimination."

This is obviously bad news for Lebanon, and I'm surprised that it's taking so long to come up with a compromise package deal that would get the government up and running again as national unity government. Of course there are a lot of things to be settled, including the presidency, expanding the cabinet, the Hariri tribunal and the Paris III economic deal, but I don't think that these are unbridgeable gaps.

Hezbollah has said that yesterday was a taste of what it's capable of, and I don't think anyone doubts their resolve or power.

This seems to be shaping up to be a full-scale coup d'état by Hezbollah with the support of the army. It looks like they're going piece by piece. Future was first, now the PSP is being taken in the Chouf, and I imagine the Lebanese Forces in the Christian sectors will be next.

The rest of the Lebanese parties were no match for Hezbollah, but when you throw in the army, what can you expect? Hariri and Joumblatt seem to have agreed not to fight, probably to save the bloodshed that would not have stopped the coup in any case. So they've agreed to go quietly in exchange for there not being a battle to which Future and PSP partisans would have gone like lambs to the slaughter.

The army seems to have cut a deal with Hezbollah, but it's hard to say what they could have done in any case, since they're so much weaker than the Party of God. So the current government will most likely be forced to resign, Suleiman will be appointed as president, and someone pliable will be appointed to be Prime Minister. Things will be like before 2005, except that instead of taking marching orders from Damascus, the new government will answer to Harat Hreik.

Yesterday, I spent a good part of the day in Hamra, where SSNP thugs were still armed and around. They broke up a group of unarmed neighborhood residents (most of whom were with Future) by shooting in the air and shouting. The night before a 16-year-old boy had been killed while delivering a narguileh for the shop he worked for. When they finally had a hard time getting the group of the boy's friends, family and neighbors to go inside despite plenty of shooting, they left. Shortly afterward, the Army finally showed up. The SSNP gunmen were going around Hamra without any challenge from the Army.

Today, things seem to be much better in West Beirut (although I haven't been there today), but fighting has spread all over the country, with Hezbollah apparently shelling a Druze village and opposition Druze forces fighting the PSP in Aley. Clashes are also going on in in Shweifat.

Add this to the fighting in Tripoli, and the death toll is nearly 40 now. In the words of Yeats:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

I never thought I'd say this, but there was part of Samir Geagea's speech this afternoon that I agree with. He said that the use of Hezbollah's weapons has delegitimized their very existence. I tend to agree with this idea, because Hezbollah has decided to use its weapons in an internal dispute between Lebanese actors. (Here, it's important to remember that the myth that Hezbollah has never been part of inter-Lebanese fighting fails to include when Amal and Hezbollah fought each the during the civil war.) What has happened is that the March 14 government made a decision that Hezbollah disagreed with, and in reaction to this, they took up arms and occupied half of Beirut. This means that the weapons whose sole purpose is supposed to deter Israeli aggression and defend Lebanon has been used as a blunt political tool to try to force the government to resign, or at the very least, send it a far-from-subtle message. 

The line being taken by the opposition now (at least as far as the talking heads of al-Manar are concerned) is that Hezbollah has helped the state put down militias (namely Mustaqbal, or the Future movement). This position fails to take into consideration, for example, the fact that there are still armed militia members of Amal and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party walking around West Beirut.

Either armed militias are illegal or they aren't. What's happened is that the Army seems to have passively taken the side of Hezbollah, which means that their legitimacy will be decreased or destroyed in the eyes of other Lebanese communities, especially the Sunnis in Saida and Tripoli. It has also sent the message that the most effective political tool is military force. I imagine, then, that the Sunnis in Saida and Tripoli, the pro-government Christians and the Druze loyal to Walid Jumblatt have likely decided that they can no longer count on the Army to be an impartial arbiter for the state. This will surely lead to increased militia training and arming. It wouldn't surprise me if the lesson that the Lebanese Forces and the PSP have taken from the defeat of Mustaqbal (probably the weakest of the pro-government parties/militias, if one of the nastier ones on a local neighborhood level) is that they should be prepared for more of the same in the not-so-distant future.

So where does this leave us? Despite rumors earlier today, it doesn't look like Saniora, or anyone else, will resign from the government. So what? There's still no president, and the fundamental dysfunction of the Lebanese state has only been highlighted, not solved. If this all ends with Hezbollah and its allied militias pulling back to their territory in the next day or so, leaving a humiliating message for the other parties and their militias, we'll be back to where we started. Back to where we started, except a big part of the population will have lost faith in the idea that Hezbollah and its allies can be dealt with within the norms of a democratic system.

Since there is no way that any of these groups can compete with Hezbollah's military forces, look for them to embrace proxies. This might include the Sunnis accepting al-Qaeda militants and other groups hoping for more Israeli intervention. I'm sure that after the disaster that was the war in 2006, the Israeli establishment wouldn't mind taking advantage of the situation for  rematch. In any case, what this situation hasn't done is foster an atmosphere where either side feels like it can compromise. If anything, this whole situation has pushed March 14 further into its corner and inflated the arrogance and confidence of Hezbollah and its allies in the country and abroad. Neither of which bodes well for peace or stability in Lebanon.

Amin Gemayel, whom I can't stand, called Hezbollah's victory a Pyrrhic one (actually, he said it in French, the snooty bastard). I tend to think that, on a national level and in the long term, he's probably right. In any case, it's enough to turn some Lebanese into bitter Mercutios.

The rumor I've been hearing now, to the glee of some Aounist Christians in my neighborhood, is that Prime Minister Saniora has resigned. I can't confirm this, but it really begs the question of what he would resign from. Premiership of what? There is no government. The military is sitting around doing absolutely nothing, which may be best for the lives of the soldiers but is disastrous for the life of the state. I walked down to the eastern side of the bridge that connects east and west Beirut, and it was being guarded by a couple of tanks and APCs and some soldiers. The latter were sitting around shooting the shit and listening to the radio. One was sleeping in the shadow of his APC. I've also seen it reported that Jumblatt was forced to flee his home in Clemenceau under the protection of the Army.

Despite the fact that the army is much weaker than Hezbollah and would have lost any real shooting match, I keep wondering to myself if one of the reasons the Army is staying out is because of the head of the Army, Michel Suleiman. He had been put forward as a compromise candidate for president. Now that Hezbollah is calling the shots, it will be interesting to see who they put forward as the president, or if they appoint anyone at all.

It obviously won't be Aoun, which means that he's pretty much outlived his usefulness to the opposition cum ruling party, due to the fact that he was only helpful to them so long as they were working within the system. Now that they have taken matters into their own hands, they really don't need him anymore. I don't think that Hezbollah would even try to put someone Franjieh into the presidential palace, so that pretty much only leaves Suleiman. Maybe he cut a deal with Hezbollah to stay out of the fighting in exchange for the presidency.

But even the question of who will be the president may be putting the cart before the horse. It isn't clear at all now what Hezbollah will do. Will there be a fight between the pro-Government Christian militias (Lebanese Forces and Phalangists) and Hezbollah? Will Hezbollah install a new government of its choosing based on the old system? Will they install a government composed purely of Hezbollah members? Will they call for new elections? Your guess is as good as mine.

What's sure though, is this: those who may have have been somewhat sympathetic to the underlying principles of "the Resistance" and Hezbollah's part in that movement despite (being uncomfortable with the idea of an explicitly religious party) are likely to be turned off by the last few days' events. The chorus has always been the Hezbollah would never turn its weapons inward, but it has done that now. At the end of the day, Hezbollah went outside of the rules of the game. That game may have been frustrating and often paralyzing, but at least it was nominally democratic. Now, even if they call for new elections, Hezbollah has broken the rules of the game by resorting to violence to achieve a political goal. A lot of people won't forgive or forget this, and there will be even more people who will never be able to trust the party of God to follow the rules of the (at least nominally) democratic system, because they have, for all intents and purposes, overthrown the government by force.

UPDATE: I just saw Aoun on television assuring viewers that no one would be persecuted. Maybe he didn't get the memo, but Hezbollah seized power without him or his help. He looks more like a remora sucking with all his might to be pulled along with Hezbollah, feasting on what's left of the already feeble Lebanese state.

The war is continuing, but my neighborhood looks like it's any other Saturday morning. The upscale carft shop, L'Artisan du Liban, is apparently open; there is a couple walking a dog; traffic is coming through; and Ethiopian maids are beating carpets and washing windows.

Meanwhile, in Hamra, Hezbollah took all of one night to defeat the Mostaqbal (Future, the pro-government Sunni militia) and take over the area. There are now (much more professional) Hezbollah militiamen running the areas. The Future movement's television channel was shut down, along with its newspaper and radio station. According to my friends, the army and Internal Security Forces (the latter trained by the US and loyal to Future's Hariri) are nowhere to be found.

There had been rumors about Mustaqbal training in the last year or two. I suppose we can put that notion to rest, because it only took a night for them to get their asses handed to them by Hezbollah.

So what now? Jumblatt made this point yesterday, saying that Hezbollah could easily occupy all of Beirut, but then what? I'm wondering what's going to happen to East Beirut. Are the Christians going to (or going to be allowed to) stay out of it all together? Will Hezbollah wait until Mustaqbal has been completely routed and then aim their sites at Christian Lebanese Forces and Phalangists? Will Hezbollah use its new-found posiiton of power to negotiate, or will it just be the government now?

For the moment, I can't tell that we're in a civil war by looking out the window, but had I left work an hour later yesterday, I'd probably be holed up in my office or at friends' watching street fighting all across the neighborhood that has traditionally been the safest place in Beirut.  

UPDATE: Artisan du Liban isn't actually open, but the building it's in is. Besides grocery stores, though, the Mana'eesh places are open, as are the hair salon, antique shop and carpet repair shop by my place. 

Also, it's been pointed out to me that it's Friday today, which goes to show you how much it feels like a Saturday today here.

The garbage men stop coming:

The 8 o'clock news is presented in a flack jacket:

I don't have a picture for this one, but another way you might know that you're in a civil war if there's no more bread at your local stores...

I'm watching Hassan Nasrallah's speech right now on television, and it's very contradictory. One moment he says that this is war and that the government's decision to get rid of their man at the airport and to declare the Party of God's newly discovered independent telecommunications network illegal was a declaration of war. He says that Hezbollah's weapons will never be turned inward, but then he says that he will cut that hand off that tries to touch those weapons. (Here it's important to remember that the telecommunication network has been newly classified as a resistance weapon.) I never thought I'd say this, but Nasrallah kind of reminded me of Rumsfeld today.

Sometimes I wonder if in 1975, people knew that they were in a civil war. I have a feeling that long after the day that we now recognize as the start of the war, many people didn't know they were in one. Everyone's talking about whether or not this means war. Somehow I've got the feeling that we're already in a civil war, but we just haven't realized it yet.

UPDATE: There's something decidedly disconcerting about hearing the RPG explode in the distance right before you hear it on the television. MY neighborhood is calm right now; the opposing Christian factions have so far kept their distance from the fighting, but I can hear automatic gun fire and RPGs in the distance. 1840, 1958, 1975, 2008? Plus ça change...

What was supposed to be a general strike over the minimum wage (the demonstration for which was finally canceled) has turned in to street clashes between Sunni and Shi'a. As usual. I crossed over to West Beirut this morning and back just now by the port road, and besides the empty streets and smoke in the air from burnt tires up by the tent city, nothing was out of the ordinary. Watching the news, however, I can see that at one point the highway was blocked with burned out tires.

My friend S, on the other hand, lives in Corniche el-Mazra'a, where there has been fighting most of the day. She just told me that they haven't seen any army troops in over an hour, just militiamen from Amal and Mostaqbal (Future Movement) carrying guns and RPG launchers. They don't have any electricity and have had to leave the living room, because the windows are too big. There have been other clashes in the usual places: Cola, Museitbeh, Tariq el-Jadida, Tayounneh and Ras el-Naba'a, amongst others.

It's really depressing to me how even an issue like raising the minimum wage, which should have appeal across sectarian lines, inevitably turns into an excuse for thugs from vying political parties to fight in the street. 

The opposition led by Hezbollah and General Aoun held a general strike yesterday that included blocking the road to the airport and degenerated into street clashes between pro-government and opposition supporters. What this means is that Sunni and Shia groups have been clashing, as well as Christian supporters of Geagea (pro-government) and Aoun (opposition):

Violent clashes erupted across the country, with two areas witnessing the return of old "fault lines" from the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War.

The Shiite supporters of Hizbullah and Amal clashed with the Future Movement's Sunni supporters in the predominantly Sunni area of Corniche al-Mazraa. Stone-throwing and fistfights injured dozens of people and wreaked damage on cars and private property.

At the same time, supporters of Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun clashed with followers of Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea in several predominantly Christian areas, in fights recalling the leaders' bitter rivalry in the late 1980s.

Lebanese officials were quoted as warning that the Aoun-Geagea struggle may turn into "a war of elimination."

This is obviously bad news for Lebanon, and I'm surprised that it's taking so long to come up with a compromise package deal that would get the government up and running again as national unity government. Of course there are a lot of things to be settled, including the presidency, expanding the cabinet, the Hariri tribunal and the Paris III economic deal, but I don't think that these are unbridgeable gaps.

Hezbollah has said that yesterday was a taste of what it's capable of, and I don't think anyone doubts their resolve or power.

This seems to be shaping up to be a full-scale coup d'état by Hezbollah with the support of the army. It looks like they're going piece by piece. Future was first, now the PSP is being taken in the Chouf, and I imagine the Lebanese Forces in the Christian sectors will be next.

The rest of the Lebanese parties were no match for Hezbollah, but when you throw in the army, what can you expect? Hariri and Joumblatt seem to have agreed not to fight, probably to save the bloodshed that would not have stopped the coup in any case. So they've agreed to go quietly in exchange for there not being a battle to which Future and PSP partisans would have gone like lambs to the slaughter.

The army seems to have cut a deal with Hezbollah, but it's hard to say what they could have done in any case, since they're so much weaker than the Party of God. So the current government will most likely be forced to resign, Suleiman will be appointed as president, and someone pliable will be appointed to be Prime Minister. Things will be like before 2005, except that instead of taking marching orders from Damascus, the new government will answer to Harat Hreik.

Yesterday, I spent a good part of the day in Hamra, where SSNP thugs were still armed and around. They broke up a group of unarmed neighborhood residents (most of whom were with Future) by shooting in the air and shouting. The night before a 16-year-old boy had been killed while delivering a narguileh for the shop he worked for. When they finally had a hard time getting the group of the boy's friends, family and neighbors to go inside despite plenty of shooting, they left. Shortly afterward, the Army finally showed up. The SSNP gunmen were going around Hamra without any challenge from the Army.

Today, things seem to be much better in West Beirut (although I haven't been there today), but fighting has spread all over the country, with Hezbollah apparently shelling a Druze village and opposition Druze forces fighting the PSP in Aley. Clashes are also going on in in Shweifat.

Add this to the fighting in Tripoli, and the death toll is nearly 40 now. In the words of Yeats:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

I never thought I'd say this, but there was part of Samir Geagea's speech this afternoon that I agree with. He said that the use of Hezbollah's weapons has delegitimized their very existence. I tend to agree with this idea, because Hezbollah has decided to use its weapons in an internal dispute between Lebanese actors. (Here, it's important to remember that the myth that Hezbollah has never been part of inter-Lebanese fighting fails to include when Amal and Hezbollah fought each the during the civil war.) What has happened is that the March 14 government made a decision that Hezbollah disagreed with, and in reaction to this, they took up arms and occupied half of Beirut. This means that the weapons whose sole purpose is supposed to deter Israeli aggression and defend Lebanon has been used as a blunt political tool to try to force the government to resign, or at the very least, send it a far-from-subtle message. 

The line being taken by the opposition now (at least as far as the talking heads of al-Manar are concerned) is that Hezbollah has helped the state put down militias (namely Mustaqbal, or the Future movement). This position fails to take into consideration, for example, the fact that there are still armed militia members of Amal and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party walking around West Beirut.

Either armed militias are illegal or they aren't. What's happened is that the Army seems to have passively taken the side of Hezbollah, which means that their legitimacy will be decreased or destroyed in the eyes of other Lebanese communities, especially the Sunnis in Saida and Tripoli. It has also sent the message that the most effective political tool is military force. I imagine, then, that the Sunnis in Saida and Tripoli, the pro-government Christians and the Druze loyal to Walid Jumblatt have likely decided that they can no longer count on the Army to be an impartial arbiter for the state. This will surely lead to increased militia training and arming. It wouldn't surprise me if the lesson that the Lebanese Forces and the PSP have taken from the defeat of Mustaqbal (probably the weakest of the pro-government parties/militias, if one of the nastier ones on a local neighborhood level) is that they should be prepared for more of the same in the not-so-distant future.

So where does this leave us? Despite rumors earlier today, it doesn't look like Saniora, or anyone else, will resign from the government. So what? There's still no president, and the fundamental dysfunction of the Lebanese state has only been highlighted, not solved. If this all ends with Hezbollah and its allied militias pulling back to their territory in the next day or so, leaving a humiliating message for the other parties and their militias, we'll be back to where we started. Back to where we started, except a big part of the population will have lost faith in the idea that Hezbollah and its allies can be dealt with within the norms of a democratic system.

Since there is no way that any of these groups can compete with Hezbollah's military forces, look for them to embrace proxies. This might include the Sunnis accepting al-Qaeda militants and other groups hoping for more Israeli intervention. I'm sure that after the disaster that was the war in 2006, the Israeli establishment wouldn't mind taking advantage of the situation for  rematch. In any case, what this situation hasn't done is foster an atmosphere where either side feels like it can compromise. If anything, this whole situation has pushed March 14 further into its corner and inflated the arrogance and confidence of Hezbollah and its allies in the country and abroad. Neither of which bodes well for peace or stability in Lebanon.

Amin Gemayel, whom I can't stand, called Hezbollah's victory a Pyrrhic one (actually, he said it in French, the snooty bastard). I tend to think that, on a national level and in the long term, he's probably right. In any case, it's enough to turn some Lebanese into bitter Mercutios.

The rumor I've been hearing now, to the glee of some Aounist Christians in my neighborhood, is that Prime Minister Saniora has resigned. I can't confirm this, but it really begs the question of what he would resign from. Premiership of what? There is no government. The military is sitting around doing absolutely nothing, which may be best for the lives of the soldiers but is disastrous for the life of the state. I walked down to the eastern side of the bridge that connects east and west Beirut, and it was being guarded by a couple of tanks and APCs and some soldiers. The latter were sitting around shooting the shit and listening to the radio. One was sleeping in the shadow of his APC. I've also seen it reported that Jumblatt was forced to flee his home in Clemenceau under the protection of the Army.

Despite the fact that the army is much weaker than Hezbollah and would have lost any real shooting match, I keep wondering to myself if one of the reasons the Army is staying out is because of the head of the Army, Michel Suleiman. He had been put forward as a compromise candidate for president. Now that Hezbollah is calling the shots, it will be interesting to see who they put forward as the president, or if they appoint anyone at all.

It obviously won't be Aoun, which means that he's pretty much outlived his usefulness to the opposition cum ruling party, due to the fact that he was only helpful to them so long as they were working within the system. Now that they have taken matters into their own hands, they really don't need him anymore. I don't think that Hezbollah would even try to put someone Franjieh into the presidential palace, so that pretty much only leaves Suleiman. Maybe he cut a deal with Hezbollah to stay out of the fighting in exchange for the presidency.

But even the question of who will be the president may be putting the cart before the horse. It isn't clear at all now what Hezbollah will do. Will there be a fight between the pro-Government Christian militias (Lebanese Forces and Phalangists) and Hezbollah? Will Hezbollah install a new government of its choosing based on the old system? Will they install a government composed purely of Hezbollah members? Will they call for new elections? Your guess is as good as mine.

What's sure though, is this: those who may have have been somewhat sympathetic to the underlying principles of "the Resistance" and Hezbollah's part in that movement despite (being uncomfortable with the idea of an explicitly religious party) are likely to be turned off by the last few days' events. The chorus has always been the Hezbollah would never turn its weapons inward, but it has done that now. At the end of the day, Hezbollah went outside of the rules of the game. That game may have been frustrating and often paralyzing, but at least it was nominally democratic. Now, even if they call for new elections, Hezbollah has broken the rules of the game by resorting to violence to achieve a political goal. A lot of people won't forgive or forget this, and there will be even more people who will never be able to trust the party of God to follow the rules of the (at least nominally) democratic system, because they have, for all intents and purposes, overthrown the government by force.

UPDATE: I just saw Aoun on television assuring viewers that no one would be persecuted. Maybe he didn't get the memo, but Hezbollah seized power without him or his help. He looks more like a remora sucking with all his might to be pulled along with Hezbollah, feasting on what's left of the already feeble Lebanese state.

The war is continuing, but my neighborhood looks like it's any other Saturday morning. The upscale carft shop, L'Artisan du Liban, is apparently open; there is a couple walking a dog; traffic is coming through; and Ethiopian maids are beating carpets and washing windows.

Meanwhile, in Hamra, Hezbollah took all of one night to defeat the Mostaqbal (Future, the pro-government Sunni militia) and take over the area. There are now (much more professional) Hezbollah militiamen running the areas. The Future movement's television channel was shut down, along with its newspaper and radio station. According to my friends, the army and Internal Security Forces (the latter trained by the US and loyal to Future's Hariri) are nowhere to be found.

There had been rumors about Mustaqbal training in the last year or two. I suppose we can put that notion to rest, because it only took a night for them to get their asses handed to them by Hezbollah.

So what now? Jumblatt made this point yesterday, saying that Hezbollah could easily occupy all of Beirut, but then what? I'm wondering what's going to happen to East Beirut. Are the Christians going to (or going to be allowed to) stay out of it all together? Will Hezbollah wait until Mustaqbal has been completely routed and then aim their sites at Christian Lebanese Forces and Phalangists? Will Hezbollah use its new-found posiiton of power to negotiate, or will it just be the government now?

For the moment, I can't tell that we're in a civil war by looking out the window, but had I left work an hour later yesterday, I'd probably be holed up in my office or at friends' watching street fighting all across the neighborhood that has traditionally been the safest place in Beirut.  

UPDATE: Artisan du Liban isn't actually open, but the building it's in is. Besides grocery stores, though, the Mana'eesh places are open, as are the hair salon, antique shop and carpet repair shop by my place. 

Also, it's been pointed out to me that it's Friday today, which goes to show you how much it feels like a Saturday today here.

The garbage men stop coming:

The 8 o'clock news is presented in a flack jacket:

I don't have a picture for this one, but another way you might know that you're in a civil war if there's no more bread at your local stores...

I'm watching Hassan Nasrallah's speech right now on television, and it's very contradictory. One moment he says that this is war and that the government's decision to get rid of their man at the airport and to declare the Party of God's newly discovered independent telecommunications network illegal was a declaration of war. He says that Hezbollah's weapons will never be turned inward, but then he says that he will cut that hand off that tries to touch those weapons. (Here it's important to remember that the telecommunication network has been newly classified as a resistance weapon.) I never thought I'd say this, but Nasrallah kind of reminded me of Rumsfeld today.

Sometimes I wonder if in 1975, people knew that they were in a civil war. I have a feeling that long after the day that we now recognize as the start of the war, many people didn't know they were in one. Everyone's talking about whether or not this means war. Somehow I've got the feeling that we're already in a civil war, but we just haven't realized it yet.

UPDATE: There's something decidedly disconcerting about hearing the RPG explode in the distance right before you hear it on the television. MY neighborhood is calm right now; the opposing Christian factions have so far kept their distance from the fighting, but I can hear automatic gun fire and RPGs in the distance. 1840, 1958, 1975, 2008? Plus ça change...

What was supposed to be a general strike over the minimum wage (the demonstration for which was finally canceled) has turned in to street clashes between Sunni and Shi'a. As usual. I crossed over to West Beirut this morning and back just now by the port road, and besides the empty streets and smoke in the air from burnt tires up by the tent city, nothing was out of the ordinary. Watching the news, however, I can see that at one point the highway was blocked with burned out tires.

My friend S, on the other hand, lives in Corniche el-Mazra'a, where there has been fighting most of the day. She just told me that they haven't seen any army troops in over an hour, just militiamen from Amal and Mostaqbal (Future Movement) carrying guns and RPG launchers. They don't have any electricity and have had to leave the living room, because the windows are too big. There have been other clashes in the usual places: Cola, Museitbeh, Tariq el-Jadida, Tayounneh and Ras el-Naba'a, amongst others.

It's really depressing to me how even an issue like raising the minimum wage, which should have appeal across sectarian lines, inevitably turns into an excuse for thugs from vying political parties to fight in the street. 

The opposition led by Hezbollah and General Aoun held a general strike yesterday that included blocking the road to the airport and degenerated into street clashes between pro-government and opposition supporters. What this means is that Sunni and Shia groups have been clashing, as well as Christian supporters of Geagea (pro-government) and Aoun (opposition):

Violent clashes erupted across the country, with two areas witnessing the return of old "fault lines" from the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War.

The Shiite supporters of Hizbullah and Amal clashed with the Future Movement's Sunni supporters in the predominantly Sunni area of Corniche al-Mazraa. Stone-throwing and fistfights injured dozens of people and wreaked damage on cars and private property.

At the same time, supporters of Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun clashed with followers of Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea in several predominantly Christian areas, in fights recalling the leaders' bitter rivalry in the late 1980s.

Lebanese officials were quoted as warning that the Aoun-Geagea struggle may turn into "a war of elimination."

This is obviously bad news for Lebanon, and I'm surprised that it's taking so long to come up with a compromise package deal that would get the government up and running again as national unity government. Of course there are a lot of things to be settled, including the presidency, expanding the cabinet, the Hariri tribunal and the Paris III economic deal, but I don't think that these are unbridgeable gaps.

Hezbollah has said that yesterday was a taste of what it's capable of, and I don't think anyone doubts their resolve or power.

This seems to be shaping up to be a full-scale coup d'état by Hezbollah with the support of the army. It looks like they're going piece by piece. Future was first, now the PSP is being taken in the Chouf, and I imagine the Lebanese Forces in the Christian sectors will be next.

The rest of the Lebanese parties were no match for Hezbollah, but when you throw in the army, what can you expect? Hariri and Joumblatt seem to have agreed not to fight, probably to save the bloodshed that would not have stopped the coup in any case. So they've agreed to go quietly in exchange for there not being a battle to which Future and PSP partisans would have gone like lambs to the slaughter.

The army seems to have cut a deal with Hezbollah, but it's hard to say what they could have done in any case, since they're so much weaker than the Party of God. So the current government will most likely be forced to resign, Suleiman will be appointed as president, and someone pliable will be appointed to be Prime Minister. Things will be like before 2005, except that instead of taking marching orders from Damascus, the new government will answer to Harat Hreik.

Yesterday, I spent a good part of the day in Hamra, where SSNP thugs were still armed and around. They broke up a group of unarmed neighborhood residents (most of whom were with Future) by shooting in the air and shouting. The night before a 16-year-old boy had been killed while delivering a narguileh for the shop he worked for. When they finally had a hard time getting the group of the boy's friends, family and neighbors to go inside despite plenty of shooting, they left. Shortly afterward, the Army finally showed up. The SSNP gunmen were going around Hamra without any challenge from the Army.

Today, things seem to be much better in West Beirut (although I haven't been there today), but fighting has spread all over the country, with Hezbollah apparently shelling a Druze village and opposition Druze forces fighting the PSP in Aley. Clashes are also going on in in Shweifat.

Add this to the fighting in Tripoli, and the death toll is nearly 40 now. In the words of Yeats:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

I never thought I'd say this, but there was part of Samir Geagea's speech this afternoon that I agree with. He said that the use of Hezbollah's weapons has delegitimized their very existence. I tend to agree with this idea, because Hezbollah has decided to use its weapons in an internal dispute between Lebanese actors. (Here, it's important to remember that the myth that Hezbollah has never been part of inter-Lebanese fighting fails to include when Amal and Hezbollah fought each the during the civil war.) What has happened is that the March 14 government made a decision that Hezbollah disagreed with, and in reaction to this, they took up arms and occupied half of Beirut. This means that the weapons whose sole purpose is supposed to deter Israeli aggression and defend Lebanon has been used as a blunt political tool to try to force the government to resign, or at the very least, send it a far-from-subtle message. 

The line being taken by the opposition now (at least as far as the talking heads of al-Manar are concerned) is that Hezbollah has helped the state put down militias (namely Mustaqbal, or the Future movement). This position fails to take into consideration, for example, the fact that there are still armed militia members of Amal and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party walking around West Beirut.

Either armed militias are illegal or they aren't. What's happened is that the Army seems to have passively taken the side of Hezbollah, which means that their legitimacy will be decreased or destroyed in the eyes of other Lebanese communities, especially the Sunnis in Saida and Tripoli. It has also sent the message that the most effective political tool is military force. I imagine, then, that the Sunnis in Saida and Tripoli, the pro-government Christians and the Druze loyal to Walid Jumblatt have likely decided that they can no longer count on the Army to be an impartial arbiter for the state. This will surely lead to increased militia training and arming. It wouldn't surprise me if the lesson that the Lebanese Forces and the PSP have taken from the defeat of Mustaqbal (probably the weakest of the pro-government parties/militias, if one of the nastier ones on a local neighborhood level) is that they should be prepared for more of the same in the not-so-distant future.

So where does this leave us? Despite rumors earlier today, it doesn't look like Saniora, or anyone else, will resign from the government. So what? There's still no president, and the fundamental dysfunction of the Lebanese state has only been highlighted, not solved. If this all ends with Hezbollah and its allied militias pulling back to their territory in the next day or so, leaving a humiliating message for the other parties and their militias, we'll be back to where we started. Back to where we started, except a big part of the population will have lost faith in the idea that Hezbollah and its allies can be dealt with within the norms of a democratic system.

Since there is no way that any of these groups can compete with Hezbollah's military forces, look for them to embrace proxies. This might include the Sunnis accepting al-Qaeda militants and other groups hoping for more Israeli intervention. I'm sure that after the disaster that was the war in 2006, the Israeli establishment wouldn't mind taking advantage of the situation for  rematch. In any case, what this situation hasn't done is foster an atmosphere where either side feels like it can compromise. If anything, this whole situation has pushed March 14 further into its corner and inflated the arrogance and confidence of Hezbollah and its allies in the country and abroad. Neither of which bodes well for peace or stability in Lebanon.

Amin Gemayel, whom I can't stand, called Hezbollah's victory a Pyrrhic one (actually, he said it in French, the snooty bastard). I tend to think that, on a national level and in the long term, he's probably right. In any case, it's enough to turn some Lebanese into bitter Mercutios.

The rumor I've been hearing now, to the glee of some Aounist Christians in my neighborhood, is that Prime Minister Saniora has resigned. I can't confirm this, but it really begs the question of what he would resign from. Premiership of what? There is no government. The military is sitting around doing absolutely nothing, which may be best for the lives of the soldiers but is disastrous for the life of the state. I walked down to the eastern side of the bridge that connects east and west Beirut, and it was being guarded by a couple of tanks and APCs and some soldiers. The latter were sitting around shooting the shit and listening to the radio. One was sleeping in the shadow of his APC. I've also seen it reported that Jumblatt was forced to flee his home in Clemenceau under the protection of the Army.

Despite the fact that the army is much weaker than Hezbollah and would have lost any real shooting match, I keep wondering to myself if one of the reasons the Army is staying out is because of the head of the Army, Michel Suleiman. He had been put forward as a compromise candidate for president. Now that Hezbollah is calling the shots, it will be interesting to see who they put forward as the president, or if they appoint anyone at all.

It obviously won't be Aoun, which means that he's pretty much outlived his usefulness to the opposition cum ruling party, due to the fact that he was only helpful to them so long as they were working within the system. Now that they have taken matters into their own hands, they really don't need him anymore. I don't think that Hezbollah would even try to put someone Franjieh into the presidential palace, so that pretty much only leaves Suleiman. Maybe he cut a deal with Hezbollah to stay out of the fighting in exchange for the presidency.

But even the question of who will be the president may be putting the cart before the horse. It isn't clear at all now what Hezbollah will do. Will there be a fight between the pro-Government Christian militias (Lebanese Forces and Phalangists) and Hezbollah? Will Hezbollah install a new government of its choosing based on the old system? Will they install a government composed purely of Hezbollah members? Will they call for new elections? Your guess is as good as mine.

What's sure though, is this: those who may have have been somewhat sympathetic to the underlying principles of "the Resistance" and Hezbollah's part in that movement despite (being uncomfortable with the idea of an explicitly religious party) are likely to be turned off by the last few days' events. The chorus has always been the Hezbollah would never turn its weapons inward, but it has done that now. At the end of the day, Hezbollah went outside of the rules of the game. That game may have been frustrating and often paralyzing, but at least it was nominally democratic. Now, even if they call for new elections, Hezbollah has broken the rules of the game by resorting to violence to achieve a political goal. A lot of people won't forgive or forget this, and there will be even more people who will never be able to trust the party of God to follow the rules of the (at least nominally) democratic system, because they have, for all intents and purposes, overthrown the government by force.

UPDATE: I just saw Aoun on television assuring viewers that no one would be persecuted. Maybe he didn't get the memo, but Hezbollah seized power without him or his help. He looks more like a remora sucking with all his might to be pulled along with Hezbollah, feasting on what's left of the already feeble Lebanese state.

The war is continuing, but my neighborhood looks like it's any other Saturday morning. The upscale carft shop, L'Artisan du Liban, is apparently open; there is a couple walking a dog; traffic is coming through; and Ethiopian maids are beating carpets and washing windows.

Meanwhile, in Hamra, Hezbollah took all of one night to defeat the Mostaqbal (Future, the pro-government Sunni militia) and take over the area. There are now (much more professional) Hezbollah militiamen running the areas. The Future movement's television channel was shut down, along with its newspaper and radio station. According to my friends, the army and Internal Security Forces (the latter trained by the US and loyal to Future's Hariri) are nowhere to be found.

There had been rumors about Mustaqbal training in the last year or two. I suppose we can put that notion to rest, because it only took a night for them to get their asses handed to them by Hezbollah.

So what now? Jumblatt made this point yesterday, saying that Hezbollah could easily occupy all of Beirut, but then what? I'm wondering what's going to happen to East Beirut. Are the Christians going to (or going to be allowed to) stay out of it all together? Will Hezbollah wait until Mustaqbal has been completely routed and then aim their sites at Christian Lebanese Forces and Phalangists? Will Hezbollah use its new-found posiiton of power to negotiate, or will it just be the government now?

For the moment, I can't tell that we're in a civil war by looking out the window, but had I left work an hour later yesterday, I'd probably be holed up in my office or at friends' watching street fighting all across the neighborhood that has traditionally been the safest place in Beirut.  

UPDATE: Artisan du Liban isn't actually open, but the building it's in is. Besides grocery stores, though, the Mana'eesh places are open, as are the hair salon, antique shop and carpet repair shop by my place. 

Also, it's been pointed out to me that it's Friday today, which goes to show you how much it feels like a Saturday today here.

The garbage men stop coming:

The 8 o'clock news is presented in a flack jacket:

I don't have a picture for this one, but another way you might know that you're in a civil war if there's no more bread at your local stores...

I'm watching Hassan Nasrallah's speech right now on television, and it's very contradictory. One moment he says that this is war and that the government's decision to get rid of their man at the airport and to declare the Party of God's newly discovered independent telecommunications network illegal was a declaration of war. He says that Hezbollah's weapons will never be turned inward, but then he says that he will cut that hand off that tries to touch those weapons. (Here it's important to remember that the telecommunication network has been newly classified as a resistance weapon.) I never thought I'd say this, but Nasrallah kind of reminded me of Rumsfeld today.

Sometimes I wonder if in 1975, people knew that they were in a civil war. I have a feeling that long after the day that we now recognize as the start of the war, many people didn't know they were in one. Everyone's talking about whether or not this means war. Somehow I've got the feeling that we're already in a civil war, but we just haven't realized it yet.

UPDATE: There's something decidedly disconcerting about hearing the RPG explode in the distance right before you hear it on the television. MY neighborhood is calm right now; the opposing Christian factions have so far kept their distance from the fighting, but I can hear automatic gun fire and RPGs in the distance. 1840, 1958, 1975, 2008? Plus ça change...

What was supposed to be a general strike over the minimum wage (the demonstration for which was finally canceled) has turned in to street clashes between Sunni and Shi'a. As usual. I crossed over to West Beirut this morning and back just now by the port road, and besides the empty streets and smoke in the air from burnt tires up by the tent city, nothing was out of the ordinary. Watching the news, however, I can see that at one point the highway was blocked with burned out tires.

My friend S, on the other hand, lives in Corniche el-Mazra'a, where there has been fighting most of the day. She just told me that they haven't seen any army troops in over an hour, just militiamen from Amal and Mostaqbal (Future Movement) carrying guns and RPG launchers. They don't have any electricity and have had to leave the living room, because the windows are too big. There have been other clashes in the usual places: Cola, Museitbeh, Tariq el-Jadida, Tayounneh and Ras el-Naba'a, amongst others.

It's really depressing to me how even an issue like raising the minimum wage, which should have appeal across sectarian lines, inevitably turns into an excuse for thugs from vying political parties to fight in the street. 

The opposition led by Hezbollah and General Aoun held a general strike yesterday that included blocking the road to the airport and degenerated into street clashes between pro-government and opposition supporters. What this means is that Sunni and Shia groups have been clashing, as well as Christian supporters of Geagea (pro-government) and Aoun (opposition):

Violent clashes erupted across the country, with two areas witnessing the return of old "fault lines" from the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War.

The Shiite supporters of Hizbullah and Amal clashed with the Future Movement's Sunni supporters in the predominantly Sunni area of Corniche al-Mazraa. Stone-throwing and fistfights injured dozens of people and wreaked damage on cars and private property.

At the same time, supporters of Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun clashed with followers of Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea in several predominantly Christian areas, in fights recalling the leaders' bitter rivalry in the late 1980s.

Lebanese officials were quoted as warning that the Aoun-Geagea struggle may turn into "a war of elimination."

This is obviously bad news for Lebanon, and I'm surprised that it's taking so long to come up with a compromise package deal that would get the government up and running again as national unity government. Of course there are a lot of things to be settled, including the presidency, expanding the cabinet, the Hariri tribunal and the Paris III economic deal, but I don't think that these are unbridgeable gaps.

Hezbollah has said that yesterday was a taste of what it's capable of, and I don't think anyone doubts their resolve or power.