Words finally on paper

If five men in a car had only moments to escape a tornado approaching in the rear view mirror, the last thing you would expect them to do would be argue over directions. Yet this is effectively what the Lebanese government has done. Faced with the realistic possibility of the country returning to civil war as weekly bombs rocked Beirut and other parts of the country, the new ministers spent weeks bickering. This was not a debate over who gets to sit in the front seat — that was the previous eleven months’ work — but instead over what nickname to give the car. Hezbollah and chums favored ‘The Resistance Racer’ while Hariri and company pushed for ‘Ignition Independence.’ As the dispute over how to refer to Hezbollah’s military might continued, the Kataeb party threatened to walk out. Even by Lebanese standards it was a foolhardy bluff; no serious observer