Political squabbling this week between the Lebanese government and its critics led by Hezbollah threatens to complicate the work of UN peacekeepers, whose top general is complaining of a power vacuum.
"This government should go," shouted Hezbollah member of parliament Ali Ammar to a crowd of several thousand sympathizers at a rally last Monday in the capital's predominantly Shiite suburbs, setting off a round of political attacks on Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah quickly picked up the chase. Over the next two days, he denounced Siniora and his allies in televised interviews for their "inhumane and immoral" stance during the 34-day war Israel waged against the Shiite group.
Nasrallah, whose party ironically holds two posts in the 24-member Cabinet, has called for the creation of a government of national unity that would include a paradoxical ally, the Free Patriotic Current (FPC). The FPC is headed by Christian and former general Michel Aoun, who has found a common cause with pro-Syrian forces, which the current government's supporters outnumber in parliament.
Hezbollah has an enormous and virtually uncontested power base in the capital's southern suburbs and in villages of south Lebanon, both areas that were devastated by Israeli bombing and shelling, as well as in the Bekaa Valley.
The Party of God showed its military prowess during the war with Israel and has been quick to step in to begin rebuilding Shiite areas, trumping a central government that has been slow on the uptake. It is now pushing for an equally influential political role.
Siniora, backed politically and financially by Western and Arab governments, is not budging.
Speaking in Cairo on Thursday, he said the "current government will remain as long as it receives the trust of parliament. Criticisms are normal. Our country is a democratic country."
But his tenacity in holding on to his job has not been accompanied by the necessary boldness in making decisions and acting.
Since humanitarian aid began pouring into the country as the war continued to rage, Siniora was criticized -- not entirely fairly given Israeli bombing -- for not doing enough to distribute it. There were also widespread claims of corruption, something not uncommon in Lebanon.
And now, the French general in command of UN peacekeepers in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Alain Pellegrini, has leveled a potentially more worrisome accusation.
In an interview published on Thursday in the French daily La Croix, he criticized the government for not doing enough to facilitate his mission.
Complaining that he was having trouble billeting the international troops that have already arrived in the country, he said: "I remind the Lebanese authorities that they need to offer us the [necessary] land, which so far they have not done."
"We are here at their request, and the least they could do is help us," he said.
The problem was underscored on Friday, when Indonesia announced the deployment of some 1,000 peacekeepers it was offering had been delayed until the end of next month at the request of UNIFIL.
But the true test will be that of disarming Hezbollah, which is implicitly called for in UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which led to an Aug. 14 ceasefire.
The central question will be the extent of cooperation, or hostility, among the three principal actors on the Lebanese side of the border -- the government, Hezbollah and UNIFIL.
Resolution 1701 stipulates that the Lebanese government should take the lead in disarming the Shiite militias, aided at its request by UNIFIL.
And Siniora has said: "When the army sees arms, it should interdict and confiscate all those arms."
But Hezbollah does not think the government has the will to do what Israel failed to do -- disarm the group. As Nasrallah has said, the "Lebanese army is not an army of mercenaries ... to carry out orders from abroad."
The apparent lack of progress in this area appears to be frustrating Pellegrini, who said in the La Croix interview that UNIFIL would act on its own if necessary.
"If the [Lebanese army] fails to act, we must assume our responsibilities as a UN force," he said. "Someone will have to intervene, with all the consequences that this might have for the Lebanese authorities."
This leads to concerns that, in the event of a standoff between the government and Hezbollah, UNIFIL might be faced with an even more perilous mission that originally envisioned.
A cartoon published on Thursday in the Saudi-owned daily al-Hayat sketched out what the new situation might look like.
It depicted Lebanon as divided between two camps -- Hezbollah and the March 14 Forces, the coalition to which Siniora belongs. Right in the middle is a UN watchtower.
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