Back to Iraq | Being a recounting of my journalistic ventures in Iraq

DUBAI – First of all, thanks to peo­ple for writ­ing to check on me. The long radio silence has wor­ried peo­ple, but there’s a rea­son for it. My wife and I left for Dubai back in Feb­ru­ary, and there’s not been much to write about from here. Any­way, we’re per­fectly safe here. Bored, too.

I’m greatly wish­ing I could get back to Beirut right now. But the air­port is closed, and we’re hear­ing that Hezbol­lah is attempt­ing to close Beirut’s port, too. In fact, from the sounds of it, Hezbol­lah is tak­ing the city — at least the west­ern part of it. This was the threat, and it seems like they’re mak­ing good on it.

At the moment, it appears the only way in is over­land through Syria via Tripoli — although even that road may have been blocked. NOW Lebanon is cur­rently report­ing it’s blocked by burn­ing tires. Not sure who is doing the north­ern block­ing, but that’s a heav­ily Sunni area, so local Salafis might be attempt­ing to block infil­tra­tion of forces from Syria. Mas­naa, the other main land cross­ing was closed by Salafists last night. They have good rea­son to fear rein­force­ments from Syria or Iran. When I entered Lebanon on July 13, 2006 to get to the war, an Iran­ian man came in at the same time — I saw his pass­port. We exchanged glances and went our sep­a­rate ways.

Friends in Hamra and nearby ‘hoods report that Hezbol­lah gun­men have taken the streets and are telling peo­ple to stay indoors. They’re also tak­ing pro-government peo­ple from their homes. One friend near Sport­ing Club reported a Shi’ite man in her (mixed) neigh­bor­hood was taken by gun­men as he was scream­ing, “I’m from the Dahiyeh!” Reports com­ing in right now report that RPGs are hit­ting Qor­e­itam, Saad Hariri’s home in West Beirut.
Streets are being sec­tioned off by sec­tar­ian divi­sion.

There are reports of Hezbol­lah check­points around the infor­ma­tion and defense min­istries. Young men’s IDs are being checked. Mean­while, in the east­ern, mainly Chris­t­ian, part of the city, it’s quiet. Most stores are shut­tered and many res­i­dents have appar­ently fled for the hills and moun­tains north and east of Beirut — the tra­di­tional Chris­t­ian heart­lands of Lebanon.

LBC, one of the main broad­cast­ers, is show­ing patri­otic songs on its satel­lite feed — usu­ally a bad sign.

Mustafa Alouch, a Future Move­ment MP from Beirut is on Al Jazeera right now say­ing Hezbol­lah is the only orga­nized force in Lebanon. The Sun­nis fight­ing back are just cit­i­zens defend­ing their homes, he says. This is patently untrue, as Hariri’s Future move­ment has a mili­tia. It’s just not as adept as Hezbollah.

“Hezbol­lah has been vic­to­ri­ous,” he said. “It has taken over Beirut. But this is a wound that will not heal. … The state of Hezbol­lah wants to dom­i­nate the Lebanese state. … Hezbol­lah rep­re­sents in Lebanon an Iran­ian proxy. This is not a local conflict.”

He’s right. This cur­rently has all the ear­marks of a Sunni-Shi’ite scrap as you’ve been see­ing in Iraq. Lebanon is — again — a front line in a con­flict between Iran/Syria and the U.S.

UPDATE 1148 +4 GMT: Hezbol­lah and Amal mili­ti­a­men have cut off the road near the Phoeni­cia Inter­con­ti­nen­tal Hotel near where for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Rafik Hariri was assas­si­nated. Spec­u­la­tion: Hezbol­lah may be plan­nin to take the hotel, as it housed mem­bers of par­lia­ment dur­ing the long siege of the Serail. I’ve head they’ve since left, but Hezbol­lah may think some are still in there, given that they’ve already taken over the homes of other pro-government MPs. Also, the Port of Beirut is appar­ently in Army hands. There’s light traf­fic around the port, but it’s calm there.

I’m start­ing to think this is a cal­i­brated show of strength by Hezbol­lah. Based on the neigh­bor­hoods they’re going into — mainly Sunni and mixed ‘hoods in West Beirut, along with sym­bolic attacks on Hariri land­marks — his home, his TV sta­tion — it appears Hezbol­lah is show­ing that it can take over if it wants to. This, in fact, was a threat made by Has­san Nas­ral­lah yes­ter­day when he said if the group wanted to stage a coup, gov­ern­ment lead­ers would be in prison or the sea by dawn. Like­wise, Hezbol­lah is orga­nized enough that if it wanted to take West Beirut com­pletely, they could. (East Beirut is another story. That’s an express trip to Civil Warville, and Hezbol­lah doesn’t want to be the one to fire the first shot on that conflict.)

I could be very wrong, but I pre­dict the fight­ing will be over later today or tomor­row and Hezbol­lah will begin turn­ing the areas its taken over to the Lebanese Army. Peo­ple taken will be released — most of them. Hezbol­lah won’t pass up the oppor­tu­nity to take care of some polit­i­cal ene­mies and peo­ple it con­sid­ers traitors.

UPDATE 1234 +4 GMT: This isn’t a war, this a bitch-slap. Judg­ing from reports, the only March 14 fac­tion tar­geted by Hezbol­lah seems to be the Future Move­ment, a pri­mar­ily Sunni group. It’s also the mil­i­tar­ily weak­est of the March 14 fac­tions. The PSP and Chris­t­ian parts of March 14 have stayed out of the fight­ing for the most part. These past two days have been a pub­lic humil­i­a­tion of Saad Hariri.

Already, civil­ians are walk­ing the streets nor­mally, based on Al Jazeera video. (Most of them have suit­cases, indi­cat­ing a desire to flee.) Most — per­haps even all? — of the press out­lets asso­ci­ated with Hariri have been closed down. Fight­ing is dying down all across the city as the army and mili­tias take con­trol of secu­rity in their var­i­ous sectors.

This wasn’t a war… This was a warning.

UPDATE 1804 +4 GMT: Actu­ally, I take that back. This may well be a coup. It looks like most of the gov­ern­ment may well be capit­u­lat­ing to Hezbollah’s actions. We’re wait­ing to see what Hariri, Sin­iora and oth­ers will do. They’re all in a big meet­ing at Geagea’s place. Like that won’t throw gaso­line on the fire.

UPDATE 2037 +4 GMT: Well, leader of the Lebanese Forces Samir Geagea came out and pledged defi­ance to Hezbol­lah, say­ing Lebanon and Beirut would not fall. By using their weapons, he said, they have lost their right to them. Does that mean the LF is going to get into the fight and dis­arm Hezbol­lah? Not likely. Amin Gemayel spoke ear­lier, and mouthed sim­i­lar plat­i­tudes, but based on their demeanor and lack of any offered solu­tions or com­pro­mise, they seemed beaten to me. Where is Saad Hariri and Fuad Siniora?