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Rebels call the shots Martin Chulov, Middle East correspondent, Beirut | May 17, 2008
"JUST before midnight on Wednesday, Beirut erupted in gunfire that locals briefly thought heralded a long-dreaded new sectarian war.
Perhaps worse than that, it was the beginning of phase two in the takeover of Lebanon that the Government and the West seem unable to stop. It also marked a sharp escalation in a creeping proxy war that is reshaping the region.
As tracer rounds lit the downtown sky, news quickly spread that the shots were fired not in anger but joy. The gunmen were Hezbollah followers who had held the country to ransom for a week and whose demands had been met by a Government that could no longer defy them.
Bar patrons in the nearby swanky Christian neighbourhood of Gemmayze retreated to their drinks and flat-screen televisions showing MPs trying to sell the backdown to their heartland. Less than 100m away, Shia Muslims, who had camped out for a year along what was once the civil war green line demarcating Christian east Beirut from the Sunni Muslim west of the city, continued firing into the night, their rapture subsiding only when their ammunition ran out.
The Government had just given way on two issues that a week earlier it had considered bastions of sovereignty. The first was a move to sack the airport security chief, a senior Hezbollah man whose allegiances did not lie with the law-makers. The second was to dismantle a communications network used by Hezbollah to avoid the electronic eavesdroppers of Israel and the West.
Hezbollah, in turn, had viewed both issues as crucial to its influence. It barely missed a minute to use both as leverage to break an 18-month logjam that until then had been confined to the political arena.
Iranian-trained and armed Hezbollah gunmen, more accustomed to the forests and banana groves of southern Lebanon, were soon snaking through the streets of west Beirut and the centre of government power. They took the neighbourhood with ease, stopping only to shoot at security cameras.
West Beirut fell as Lebanon's stakeholders in Tehran, Washington, Damascus, Riyadh and Jerusalem looked on. Next came the mountain stronghold of Druze leader and government loyalist Walid Jumblatt, whose militiamen were no such pushovers. Rockets thundered into the Druze neighbourhoods, fired from launchers positioned near the coast.
The previous time Hezbollah had used such rockets was in its war with Israel two years ago. It had vowed never to turn the weapons on compatriots. But the rules of the game have changed in Lebanon. Also changing are world views on what to do next.
Watching perhaps more closely than any other nation is the US, which has invested a hefty slice of political capital in trying to transform Lebanon from the ruins of a sectarian hell to a budding Arab democracy it can showcase to the region.
US gains in the Middle East have been scant during the past six years and its bid to spread key democratic themes of prosperity and nation-building have been slow to take hold.
The US foothold in Lebanon has been shaky at best during the past 18 months, when Hezbollah and its allies, which command the political Opposition in Lebanon, have prevented parliament from convening and have demanded veto over appointments and laws. Hezbollah's main backer, Iran, has been accused of using Lebanon as a strategic enclave to undermine the US's position region-wide and of setting up a proxy commando army on the northern fringe of Israel. Hezbollah's new willingness to enforce its agenda through the barrel of its guns and the Government's inability to stop it adds a dangerous dimension to what until now has been a battle of wills between the two foes.
"I think the US is more affected than Israel," says Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs Centre. "The Iranians, and many in the Arab world, see the current struggle as a zero-sum game. If Tehran backs its allies and they advance, and the US - and let's not forget the Europeans - do nothing, this signals they are winning. People in the Arab world watch and draw conclusions.
"The key thing is that Hezbollah has a list of demands. The main one is that they get veto power in the Government.
"Another is that the investigation into the assassination (of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri) be stopped. So they aren't biding their time but pressing their demands. They also have a big problem: how are they going to get what they want?"
In many observers' eyes, the past week's events give a good indication.
"Hezbollah made its move as soon as it detected a weakness in the US position in the Middle East, thereby effecting a drastic change in the power balance in Lebanon," says Jumblatt, who was rattled by the guerilla group's move against him. "Now we are waiting for Hezbollah, Iran and Syria to determine the rules of the game."
Like Jumblatt, Saudi Arabia was not mincing words. Speaking to a Lebanese newspaper, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal said: "The legitimate Government in Lebanon is facing a large-scale war (and) we cannot stand idly by. Iran has undertaken to run that war and Hezbollah intends to forcibly (transform) Lebanon into a state with a 'rule of the jurisprudent'.
to be cont'd ....
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