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Surrounded by a ring of mountains like a concert band shell, Beirut has great acoustics. So the roiling street battles on May 8 between Hizballah militiamen and supporters of the Lebanese government echoed through the city with a drumroll of rocket explosions and a chorus of machine-gun fire that sounded like the symphonic overture to civil war. When an early-summer thunderstorm began that night, it seemed as if the heavens themselves were taking up the ominous theme...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Welcome to Hizballahstan | 5/15/2008 | See Source »

...next morning, the battle for Beirut was mostly over. After just six hours of all-out fighting, Hizballah militants were in control of areas of West Beirut that had previously been the government's preserve. This made for some incongruous scenes. Bearded men with rifles and rocket launchers secured lingerie shops and a Starbucks in the commercial Hamra district. Elsewhere, they surrounded the houses of ministers and members of Parliament and watched buses evacuate students from the American University of Beirut. "It was like a field trip for us," said a Hizballah fighter standing on the Corniche, the city...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Welcome to Hizballahstan | 5/15/2008 | See Source »

Nasrallah unleashed his fighters on the streets of Beirut after the government tried to shut down Hizballah's private telecommunications network. But he has been spoiling for this fight since November 2006, when Shi'ite parties walked out of Siniora's coalition Cabinet. Although Lebanon is a democracy, the legitimacy of its government depends on a system of sectarian quotas; without the Shi'ites--the country's largest, fastest-growing group--the Prime Minister, a Sunni, has lacked both validity and street cred. The Shi'ites' price for returning: a greater share of power, including the right to veto major...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Welcome to Hizballahstan | 5/15/2008 | See Source »

That train has left the station. The speed and ease with which Nasrallah's fighters took over Beirut--and the military's reluctance to stop them--suggest that Hizballah has free rein of the country. Unlike Hamas, which is confined to poverty-stricken Gaza, Hizballah has at its disposal an entire country, complete with a sophisticated banking system, an international airport and a friendly neighbor in Syria. Never has a terrorist organization had that kind of infrastructure. Saab notes that Hizballah's leaders can now have their cake and eat it too: "They're in control in Lebanon without having...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Welcome to Hizballahstan | 5/15/2008 | See Source »

...that cost 1,600 lives mainly on the Lebanese side. "Lebanon," says Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon, "is controlled by this terrorist organization, and its government has become irrelevant." Israelis point out that behind Nasrallah and his fighters lurks a possibly greater threat: Iran. Hizballah's dominance in Beirut allows Tehran to project its power into the Mediterranean Sea, something the U.S. and its European allies must now factor into their calculations. (The Pentagon denied reports that the U.S.S. Cole, heading to the Mediterranean from the Persian Gulf, was responding to the Lebanon crisis...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Welcome to Hizballahstan | 5/15/2008 | See Source »

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