Hezbollah and its allies have unveiled their real plan: the international tribunal will not be held whatever it takes. Their slogan is: if we cannot rule our country the way we want and impose our own policy and that of our outside allies, then let destruction strike all.

The signal to this move was given after chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani's talks in Damascus. The time came to unleash chaos. Syria would not allow Iran, which is in a critical international situation because of its nuclear ambitions, to come to an agreement with any other country at its expense.

Hezbollah has backtracked on the 'flexibility' it showed following the visit by its delegation to Saudi Arabia. This flexibility made some say there were discrepancies between the stances of Hezbollah and its key alley Michel Aoun and other parties that represent the era of Syrian influence. The Hezbollah Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah, delivered a speech in which he called for brave participation in the sabotaging event, even though he refrained from giving such instructions a few days before.

The resistance has changed its orientation. Bulldozers, trucks and buses transported debris, sandbags, tires and youths to the streets of Beirut to cut off the city and deepen sectarianism throughout its districts. Nothing was accidental. There was a clear, planned and determined decision behind every road blockade, every sand barrier, and every stone thrown. This was run by professionally trained groups that are simultaneously instructed via wireless devices and cell phones.

The scene of some travelers coming from the airport, crossing the sand barriers on foot and trying to find a means of transport to take them home reminded us of the Israeli blockade on Beirut in 1982, when Lebanese civilians had to cross the Israeli checkpoints on foot carrying luggage, a bundle of bread or a bottle of water. The masked men standing in front of the burning tires reminded us of the sectarian abductions checkpoints during the infamous civil war.

The protesters went too far with their right to express their opinion depriving the others from their right to reject the call for the strike. This way they violated public freedoms; after they had transgressed the ideas of coexistence and concordance when they fixed tents for their sit-in in the commercial central part of the country.

What is the second goal of this timing? It is of course Paris 3 conference, through which the government seeks to secure economic aid to its war-torn economy had suffered from foreign interventions and was denied recovery by the sister's mandate. Only last week, the opposition figureheads protested against the State's remissness in rehabilitating the roads that were destroyed by the Israeli Air Force in the July war, and called for an immediate compensation for those afflicted. Do they think the damages they have caused to the economy since their move started accelerate these calls? How much will the subsequent destruction, which the opposition warned the Lebanese people of unless the majority gives them access to power, cost?

Hezbollah, its allies and those behind them have proved their ability to destroy, fragmentize and cut off Beirut, force its people to stay at home, and create division among them. But they have never showed their willingness to rebuild the country or achieve harmony and coexistence. The results of their internal experiences were always negative. We never heard that Hezbollah offered the Lebanese a project of a public national interest. Its 'charitable' activities are limited to the districts of its sect and nobody other than its people can benefit from them. However, it imposes on its people a political 'purging' to prevent any 'infiltration' or pluralism.

Those who have good intents will certainly exert fresh efforts to forestall the reoccurrence of what had happened. Success is unlikely so long as orders come from abroad. If they succeed in defusing the situation and confrontation, the events took places the day before yesterday made wounds that will not be cured easily.

Source: Al Hayat