Lebanon Left to Face Most Basic of Issues

As a result, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a Sunni economist, spoke in the name of Lebanon and received foreign visitors such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for negotiations about the war. But he had to check with Nasrallah regarding important decisions, because Hezbollah was the seat of Lebanon's real power of war or peace.

"What institutions do we have?" asked Social Affairs Minister Nayla Moawad, a Maronite and the widow of assassinated president René Moawad. "We have inherited a non-administration. The Lebanese government is like this box," she said, holding up a silver coffee-table decoration. "There is nothing in it. It is empty."

Moawad and other Christians, along with Sunni Muslims, have stressed that the right response is strengthening the Lebanese government. Hezbollah must recognize that only the state can have the power of arms, they said, and it must turn away from Iranian-style theocracy to become part of the relaxed mix that has made Lebanon so attractive over the years to investors and Arab vacationers.

"It is up to Hezbollah to make this decision," Gemayel said. "Unfortunately, Lebanon is hanging on the choice."

Although the country's Sunni establishment fought the Maronites in the 1950s and again in the 1970s in the heyday of Arab nationalism, it has recoiled at Hezbollah's politically charged brand of Islam and its ties with Iran. In the debate over Lebanon's identity, conducted before the war in a round of meetings called the National Dialogue, most Sunnis opted for alliance with the Maronites and endorsed their demand for Hezbollah's disarmament.

"Nasrallah has been lying to us all along," sneered a Sunni minister in describing Hezbollah's participation in the National Dialogue.

Nasrallah has gone out of his way to reassure fellow Lebanese that Hezbollah has no intention of remaking Lebanon to look like Iran. In his recent interview, he pledged loyalty to the Lebanese tradition of religious and social tolerance.

"Lebanon is a pluralistic country," he declared. "It is not an Islamic country. It is not a Maronite country. It is not an Orthodox country. It is not a Shiite country. It is a country of consensus. You have nothing to fear from anybody from Hezbollah."

But Nasrallah's pledge was not well received by many Sunnis and Maronites. Hezbollah only weeks ago went to war without consulting the government, they noted, and moved as soon as the cease-fire took effect to help refugees without reference to government agencies charged with the same task.

Perhaps more important, they noted, was Nasrallah's postwar assertion that Hezbollah must be taken into account in government deliberations from here on out. The party ran for office in the last elections, gaining seats in parliament and two ministers in Siniora's cabinet. But Nasrallah seemed to be saying his group will be seeking more power now that, in his words, it has fought a war on Lebanon's behalf.

A share of power that reflects the Shiites' true place in the population would probably change Lebanon's orientation significantly, the Sunni and Maronite observers predicted. But a refusal to acknowledge the demographic change and Hezbollah's enhanced status after the war, they said, would be a recipe for more intercommunal conflict. As a result, the timeless view from Gemayel's terrace may be in for a change.

"I don't see Lebanon surviving as it is today," said Dori Chamoun, leader of the Maronite-based National Liberal party and son of a former president and longtime political figure, the late Camille Chamoun. "It is inevitable that the Christians will have a smaller share of the country. I only see one solution, cantonization. Everybody wants it. Nobody says it out loud."

In a recent book, Gemayel proposed abandoning Lebanon's current system and replacing it with election of the president by popular vote and decentralization along the geographical lines that largely define where Muslims and Christians live in any case. "The institutions of Lebanon are tired," he said. "They are drained of their blood."

The losers in such a change would largely be Sunni Muslims, Chamoun pointed out, because by and large they have not carved out sections of the country as theirs. Public Works Minister Mohamad Safadi, a Sunni who lives in Beirut, said he was discussing the problem with his wife recently and reassured her that, if worse comes to worst, they could always live in their weekend house -- in the quintessentially Christian port of Byblos.