Lebanon: Cast to the wind

Lebanon ended the year much as it had begun, in political limbo. In November 2006, six ministers' resignations paralysed the government and crystallised the two-year-old split between government loyalists and the opposition. A year later, president Emile Lahoud's term ended without a successor, leaving a dangerous vacuum at the top. As the year drew to a close, it looked as though Lebanon would drift rudderless until either fractious politicians resolved their power struggle, or frustrations spread to the streets.

As the year played out, it became ever clearer that Lebanon is as much a theatre for foreign struggles as for parochial sectarianism. In the tug-of-war for influence, the US backed remnants of Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora's government against Hizbullah, backed by Iran and Syria. The Shia political and military group and its allies charged that Israel's US- backed July 2006 war ostensibly to destroy it had simply continued by other, political means. Hizbullah's "weapons of resistance", and its determination to block what it sees as US hegemonic plans for the region, were at the heart of the year's political struggles, crowned with squabbling over the presidency. Fears of a full-blown conflict between Washington and Tehran, with a deadly knock-on effect on fragile Lebanon, were ever present.

More
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/877/re81.htm