ON BEIRUT 2.0

NOT AGAIN

While we're just coming to grips with the over 100,000 casualties from the cyclones in Burma (aka Myanmar), another heart-breaking tragedy is ensuing overseas.  This one is man-made, and it's the seeming lurching of Lebanon into a second civil war, with the current Sunni-Shia fighting in the capital Beirut.  As this Reuters story explains:

"Fierce clashes raged in Beirut on Thursday after the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah said the U.S.-supported Lebanese government had declared war by targeting its communications network.

Fighters from Hezbollah and the allied Amal group exchanged assault rifle fire and rocket-propelled grenades with pro-government gunmen in several areas of the capital in the worst domestic fighting since the 1975-90 civil war."

This like most things in the Middle East is just a symptom of the on-going proxy political wars that have been underway for some time now.  The piece goes on to state:

"The airport was barely functioning with only a few flights arriving and taking off, airport officials said.

The fighting in Beirut erupted minutes after Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah told a news conference that the only way out of the crisis was for the government to rescind the decisions and to attend talks aiming to end a 17-month-long political conflict with the Hezbollah-led opposition..."

"Hezbollah has led a political campaign against Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's anti-Syrian cabinet. The crisis has paralysed much of the government, left Lebanon with no president for five months, and already led to bouts of violence.

The group was the only Lebanese faction allowed to keep its weapons after the civil war, to fight Israeli forces occupying the south. Israel withdrew in 2000 and the fate of Hezbollah's weapons is at the heart of the political crisis."

There are no easy, quick answers here, like most political conflicts in the region.  The U.N. and various western governments are of course are involved as well.  But it's truly sad to see Beirut and Lebanon take a step or two back after so many years of relative peace and re-building.