Lebanese politics. Meanwhile, the influence of Saudi Arabia, long Hariri's main regional backer, had receded and an increasingly assertive Turkey had taken the role of mediator. The region, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared last January, "could not cope with Lebanon entering a new atmosphere of uncertainty".

Sitting on a tree-lined avenue in west Beirut, I spoke to Misbah Ahdab, a Sunni and former March 14 MP from a prominent Tripoli family. Over coffee and Marlboro Lights, he told me: "So much of what happens in Lebanon is linked to what happens in Iraq, in Iran, in south Yemen, in Syria and in Palestine . . . This has always been the case. Syria meddles for regional, historical and political reasons, Saudi Arabia for financial, Israel for regional hegemonyMikati, it gave Hezbollah and its allies 17 out of 30 cabinet seats - up from the ten it had held

in the Hariri coalition. This put a group that the US state department considers a terrorist organisation in control of Lebanon. Iran was seemingly on Israel's border.

Then the indictments came down. On 30 June the tribunal issued four arrest warrants to the Lebanese authorities, and on 17 August it published the names of those indicted: Salim Ayyash, Mustafa Badreddine, Hussein Oneissi and Assad Sabra, all, unsurprisingly, members of Hezbollah. Equally unsurprising was Hasan Nasrallah's refusal to hand the men over; publicly, he doubted they would ever be found.

Yet despite Hezbollah's steadfastness, the Arab spring - which had initially turned events in its favour - has proved problematic. Nasrallah's