What's Pulling Lebanon Apart
This story was written for CBSNews.com by Amman, Jordan-based reporter Kristen Gillespie.
Just hours before the strike that would shut down Lebanon began, a young veiled woman named Sana sold tapes and CDs of speeches made by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in her shop in south Beirut. Asked whether she'd be open for business the next day, she smiled and said, "When Sayyed Hassan (Nasrallah) says close, we close."
The government may consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization, but few in Lebanon would likely agree. Roughly one in four Lebanese citizens supports Hezbollah, and those numbers helped bring Lebanon to a grinding halt on Jan. 23, the day the Shiite movement called for a general strike.
President Bush once held Lebanon up as a model for Arab democracy. Today, the U.S.-backed government is struggling to fend off a massively popular Hezbollah.
A political party that doubles as an armed Shiite militia with ties to Iran — Hezbollah is trying to bring down Lebanon's elected parliamentary democracy, and for the moment, the weak Lebanese government can do very little about it. Meanwhile, anxiety is growing in the Arab world about Iran's increasing influence in the region.
The specter of another civil war hangs heavily over Lebanon, which was torn apart by sectarian strife from 1975 to 1990. It seems anyone you ask is quick to dismiss that possibility. Still, people here are talking about it, if only to deny it.
"We support the democratically elected government of Lebanon," said Juliet Wurr, a public affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. That support includes an aid package of nearly $770 million dollars to reconstruct Lebanon following the 36-day war with Israel last summer.
But Lebanese across the political spectrum are suspicious of the American government's motives in their country — in large part because of the U.S. alliance with Israel. American political support, for the moment, is not enough to counter the massive influence that Hezbollah wields in the country.
Until 2005, Lebanon was dominated by neighboring Syria, and Israel occupied chunks of the south until 2003. Now various internal factions are competing to fill the power vacuum by building political coalitions based on mutual interest.
Hezbollah and its allies have emerged as a leading player in the free-wheeling political system, putting their demographic weight behind the anti-government protests and sit-ins in Beirut that began on Dec. 1, and remained peaceful until last week.
But debate over the validity of Hezbollah's claim as a purely Lebanese movement has split the country; into those who believe Iran is encroaching, and those who do not. Thus, Lebanon is the other front — next to Iraq — where different religious groups are struggling to coexist and Iran looms in the background, its influence unclear.
Hezbollah's detractors consider it a proxy of Syria and Iran, looking to bring these influences deeper into Lebanon and stir up old tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, as is happening in Iraq. Lebanese around Beirut, whether sitting in trendy European-style cafes sipping espresso or sitting in the rubble of the capital's southern Shiite suburbs destroyed during the summer war, watch the sectarian killing in Iraq and pledge that it will not happen again in their country.
Lebanon's government was built on a power-sharing pact between Christians, Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims. But this model assumes a Christian majority. And though a census has not been taken for decades, it is generally agreed that the once-majority Christians have fallen behind Shiites in terms of population.
Hezbollah maintains that as the dominant demographic group in the country, Shiites are underrepresented in the government. That means that the clusters of tents around Beirut sheltering protestors aren't likely going anywhere until Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and his cabinet resign. Saniora says he will not leave office.
Calling the nationwide protest was Hezbollah's latest move to increase pressure on the government. While the strike was touted as voluntary, Beirut's residents could do little but join the other protesters, or stay off the streets.
Hezbollah literally took over Beirut, offering an eerie preview of what civil war could look like. Trash burned in the streets. An old Mercedes was set ablaze in the middle of an intersection and then left to burn. The Christian neighborhoods remained shuttered. Groups of young, bearded men patrolled the neighborhoods with wooden bats. Teenage Hezbollah supporters with walkie-talkies manned ad hoc checkpoints, created by tons of sand and dirt dumped at intersections.
"The state has no role," said Timur Goksel, the former spokesperson and advisor to the longtime United Nations force stationed in south Lebanon. "There's always a non-state actor you go to first," he said, describing the Lebanese government's largely impotent status.
Hezbollah provides health care, housing and a social safety net that the government does not. That explains, partly, how Hassan Nasrallah knows he can count on at least 950,000 followers to mobilize when he calls upon them to do so.
People here realize that standing up to Hezbollah could lead to another civil war. "An armed militia has not been anointed as the arbiter of the future," says Wurr. That may be true, but the Lebanese people will have to agree for Hezbollah to back down.
Though he's not an elected official, Nasrallah has already taken Lebanon to war, Wurr says. "A lot of people deeply resent what he's doing. But no one's had the guts to stand up to Hezbollah."
By Kristen Gillespie