Mikati, that reaffirmed a commitment to the UN tribunal. It now remained to be seen whether he would abide by this. "Hezbollah regard him as their choice. Whether he can go beyond that and control the government is the big question that now faces Lebanon."

Chatah told me that March 14 would refuse to join what it perceived to be a Hezbollah government, and he was true to his word. In early March, Saad Hariri officially declined Mikati's invitation to enter a coalition. Despite losing power, March 14 was politically well placed. Hezbollah was trapped. Attempts to neuter the tribunal had failed and the indictments would soon be made public, which left it with two options: accept the findings, which was inconceivable, given that it was likely it wouldbe indicted, or reject them. But without Hariri in the governing coalition it would seem, even to the Arab world, that Syria and Iran were manoeuvring again. Worse, Hezbollah would be labelled killers of a Sunni prime minister in a largely Sunni Middle East. By this chain of reasoning, all Hariri had to do was wait and then obliterate March 8 at the next general election in 2014.

A country, not a nation

But Hariri appeared hamstrung by his allies. Against the backdrop of the Arab spring, the US was so deeply reviled by those Middle Eastern states not allied with Washington that it had become a liability. After a fairly innocuous meeting with a minor Lebanese official, the US ambassador was given a public dressing down for "interfering" in