The World
Jaw, Jaw-and Talk Again of Civil War
BEIRUT--Retro is the new rage across the city as the Lebanese face down a deepening political crisis by retreating to the only safety they've been able to count on: families and sectarian allies. Last week's killing of Pierre Gemayel, 34, a key politician from Lebanon's Maronite Christian community, is the latest spark in the volatile Levant timbers since the February 2005 assassination of reformist former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. His murder set off protests that led to the end of Syria's three-decade occupation, which in turn led to this summer's war between Hezbollah and Israel.
As with Hariri's killing, suspicions point to Syria--which has a stake in blocking Lebanon's participation in a U.N. tribunal to identify and prosecute Hariri's killers. The gunning down of Gemayel--the sixth anti-Syrian figure killed in two years--further weakens the U.S.-backed Lebanese government already undercut by Hezbollah's maneuvers to gain power. Gemayel's funeral last week drew hundreds of thousands of Sunni Muslims, Druze, and Christians to listen to pro-western politicians urge unity and peaceful struggle. Unlike past demonstrations, the crowd seemed lethargic and almost defeated in its aim for peaceful resolution.
There was no such lethargy nearby in the heart of Christian East Beirut, where five middle-aged men who had once fought in Lebanon's civil war under Pierre's slain uncle, Bashir Gemayel, sat drinking the local liquor, arrack, while ignoring the televised appeals for unity. Over and over, they toasted to the envisioned deaths of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and pro-Syrian Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, while loudly proclaiming loyalty to Samir Geagea, military commander of the Lebanese Forces militia. The men were wearing old uniforms from 1982-a bit snugger than during the Christian militia's heyday--but age had not softened their attitudes. "We might not have the weapons of the dogs in Hezbollah, but we know how to fight," proclaimed a man named Ramsey, a large wooden cross around his neck and lightning-bolt tattoos on each arm. "It will only take one or two ships of weapons before we are ready."
A Mostly Symbolic Snub for Tehran
Washington won the latest round in its sparring with Iran, but narrowly. The International Atomic Energy Agency set aside Iran's request for technical help with nuclear safety measures at its Arak heavy-water reactor, now under construction. While Iran says the reactor is to produce isotopes for uses such as cancer treatment, this type of reactor produces weapons-grade plutonium as a byproduct--which Washington and its allies fear is Iran's underlying reason for the project.
With Tehran already defying a U.N. Security Council demand to halt separate uranium-enrichment activities, the United States wanted an outright rejection of the Arak request; what it got was a diplomatic IAEA maneuver that effectively said "No" to Iran by skipping action on the Arak reactor while OK'ing safety help on seven other Iranian projects deemed not to pose a potential threat. Iran offered the IAEA a little sweetener: agreement to give information about its controversial uranium-enrichment activities. But, it said, it would continue work on its Natanz reactor with or without the involvement of the IAEA.
Ex-Spy Versus Ex-Spymaster
Whoever plotted to kill former KGB operative Alexander Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, presumably hoped he would go quietly, though not painlessly. It turned out to be painful, yes; quiet, not so very. Fighting a losing battle against what health authorities in Britain said were the toxic effects of a hard-to-detect radioactive element, polonium-210, Litvinenko issued a deathbed statement in which he blamed a "barbaric and ruthless" Putin. The Russian government denied involvement.
Since defecting to Britain six years ago after exposing an alleged government-ordered murder plot against a prominent exiled Russian businessman, the ex-spy had charged that Russian authorities were behind the 2004 dioxin poisoning of Ukraine's presidential candidate (later president) Viktor Yushchenko and other efforts to silence critics. Recently, he said he was looking into possible Kremlin involvement in themurder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who reported on Kremlin abuses in Chechnya.
Some Answers to Old Questions
Shedding light on a dark chapter from the 1960s to the early 1980s, Mexico has made public a lengthy report acknowledging the role of past leaders in a "dirty war" using "massacres, forced disappearance, systematic torture, and genocide." The targets: leftist guerrillas, student activists, and political dissidents seen as a threat to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled the country for 71 years until being ousted in the 2000 elections.
With Mitchell Prothero in BEIRUT and Associated Press
This story appears in the December 4, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.