Preliminary results in Iran's elections point to a defeat, if not a rout, for allies of the country's hard-line conservative president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Dec. 19, 2006- As counting progressed last night, the chief winners looked likely to be the country's moderate conservatives, with reformists next, and the hardline conservatives lagging some way behind. In a highly symbolic victory, the former president, Akbar Rafsanjani, was assured election to the Assembly of Experts, the powerful religious group responsible for guiding policy and electing the Supreme Leader.

IS the crisis in Lebanon an expression of new-found "people power" or a dangerous reversion to type? So far, the "tent city" of mostly peaceful demonstrators in Beirut pressing for the ouster of the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora looks more like Manila in 1986 than the outbreak of civil war in 1975.

There are other reasons not to expect the worst. The Lebanese are tired of fighting, economic ruin and of being bounced around by outside powers. They want their sovereignty back and a restoration of what was once the "Switzerland of the Middle East". Collaterally damaged by its closeness to the vortex of the world’s most volatile region, the country’s myriad denominations have rearranged themselves, so that the current impasse is less about sectarianism than democratic display.

Once more, Lebanon is in political crisis. This time, we are told, it pits "Syrian- and Iranian-backed" Shiite parties (Hezbollah and Amal) and the Christian faction led by Michel Aoun against the "Western-backed" Christian, Sunni and Druze groups that support the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

These very descriptions — citing one external backer or another as a mark of political identification — illustrate the fundamental problem Lebanon must overcome. Call it the Lebanese Disease: Rather than sorting out their differences internally and addressing the fundamental injustices at the heart of their disputes, the Lebanese constantly look to outsiders to gain an advantage over their rivals.

Many adults in Lebanon keep negative views on the United States, according to a poll by Gallup. 59 per cent of respondents have an unfavourable opinion of the U.S., while 28 per cent express a favourable assessment.

Dec. 17, 2006- On Jul. 12, Hezbollah militants based in Lebanon killed eight Israeli soldiers and captured two more in a cross-border attack. The Israeli armed forces launched air strikes inside Lebanese territory to fight Hezbollah, targeting the country’s infrastructure and its airport. Hezbollah retaliated by firing rockets into several Israeli towns.

Devastated by Israel's bombs, threatened by the looming might of Iran and Syria, and divided from within by its own ethnic bloodletting - Lebanon is an unfolding tragedy with little hope of salvation. As the nation rushes headlong towards civil war, Robert Fisk, who has lived in Beirut for 30 years, picks through the city's wreckage to identify the agitators, military leaders and politicians who now wield the real power

Dec. 15, 2006- Some four years before his murder, when he was still Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafiq Hariri angrily told me a story of his struggle with Hizbollah. We were walking in the garden of his Beirut palace at Qoreitem - he reasoned that, even though his phones were all tapped, the Syrians had probably not bugged the flower beds with listening devices - and his hands were shaking with rage.

Prime Minister Fuad Saniora is still clinging to power. But the opposition, led by Hezbollah, vows to continue its two-week old protests until the government falls. SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke with members of a number of the parties involved in the dispute.

Dec. 14, 2006- At least they want to keep talking. Even as opposition protests on the streets of Beirut begin their third week, all parties involved in Lebanon's ongoing government crisis say they want to negotiate. Even as the demonstrators themselves say they are interested in one outcome only: the end of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora's government.