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Moment of truth
via The Economist: News analysis and views by (author unknown) on May 10, 2008
An escalation of conflict in Lebanon
SINCE Lebanon?s fiendishly complex politics polarised into two viciously feuding factions in the aftermath of the July, 2006 war with Israel, observers have predicted a slide into the kind of chaos that reigned during the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war. But aside from a few assassinations and occasional gunplay, along with verbal mudslinging and further erosion of the weak constitutional mecnanisms that hold the state together, not much happened. Suddenly, though, matters have escalated dramatically.
The showdown began last weekend, when the Western-backed parliamentary majority and its rump cabinet, known as the March 14th Movement, crossed what was termed a red line by Hizbullah, the powerful Shia party-cum militia that is the main force in a broad-ranging opposition backed by Syria and Iran. It declared illegal the sophisticated communications network Hizbullah uses to link its strongholds in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the capital, to the largely Shia southern and eastern parts of the country. ...
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