The Clashes in Beirut: Is the Bush Administration Stirring the Pot?

Last night when I went to sleep in Brooklyn, after reading (the meager English-language) reports of "clashes" in the capital, I assumed this violence was not much different than last year's. There were images of men holding pieces of bread and placards near piles of smoldering rubber and garbage. I got the usual warning from the US Embassy to steer clear of large public gatherings a couple of days ago.

I woke up to e-mails from friends in Lebanon and news that the violence had gotten worse.

One e-mail said: "We're hearing gunfire everywhere in the streets..It's not fun or funny."

What began as a labor union protest--enforced by Hezbollah--to raise the minimum wage became what another friend called "an existential battle" for the party.

Rumored to be at US urging, on Tuesday Prime Minister Fouad Siniora threatened to have Lebanese Army troops shut down a telephone network operated by Hezbollah in South Lebanon and the Southern suburbs of Beirut. They also sacked an airport official tied to Hezbollah and accused the group of spying on the government through secret security cameras in the airport.

"Touching their phone network is tantamount to touching their weapons and they have to make that clear...They have to show their strength and to prove that they can't be pushed around," my friend wrote.

Hezbollah Secretary General Said Hassan Nasrallah must have agreed.

"This decision was a declaration of war and the start of war on the resistance and its weapons," he said at a press conference today.

"Our response to this decision is that whoever declares or starts a war, be it a brother or a father, then it is our right to defend ourselves and our existence."

Like a lot of things Hezbollah does, the de-facto travel embargo they imposed on the capital 18 months ago, as well as yesterday's, reflect the total powerlessness of the state and the party's own political opportunism.

Last year a source of mine from Hezbollah, Ali, called me the day before the demonstrations to warn me not to go into certain areas--he did not need to specify that he meant the mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods South of Sodeco Square, on the edge of Achrafieh--the Christian district that is the Beirut's equivalent to the Upper East Side. Earlier today I watched a CNN correspondent tell viewers that Sodeco is a likely flashpoint for violence to occur if it were to. This is where Hizbollah set up the first barricade to block the road to the airport about 18 months ago.

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