Yesterday’s siege of Beirut by Hezbollah yesterday was a pivotal turning point in the Lebanese story, one so often torn by strife and grief. The fact that the shutdown degenerated rapidly into a showdown shows that they have taken the decided step to escalate tensions in the country to the breaking point. Reports of fist-fights, rock-throwing, and even sprays of automatic gunfire rocked the news. Police reports say that most of these injured were punctured with bullets. Lebanese are once again fighting Lebanese, with over 100 people injured and several dead.

On day two fights broke out in Tripoli. Now, on day three, clashes broke out at Beirut’s Arab University with four killed and over 160 injured; all over political disagreements between Sunni and Shia students in the cafeteria. According to the Lebanon Daily Star, the day looked very bleak.

BEIRUT: Clashes erupted between government loyalists and opposition supporters in Lebanon on Thursday, escalating swiftly and leaving at least three dead and 158 others wounded by the time a rare curfew was imposed on the city at 8:30 p.m. Scenes across the capital were reminiscent of the country’s brutal 1975-1990 Civil War; burning cars, reports of snipers on rooftops and a curfew for the first time since 1996.

Thirteen Lebanese Army soldiers, including four officers, were also wounded while trying to defuse the violence that spilled over from a political argument on a university campus in Tariq al-Jdideh.

Premier Fouad Siniora, speaking from the Paris III donor conference, called for restraint.

“What are we doing? No one can help a country where its own people can’t help themselves,” Siniora said. “We have to set an example for those people who came from all over and are watching Lebanon that we are trying to build a country, not a battlefield.”

He pleaded for the Lebanese to “avoid tension and escalation” and “to calm down and return to their senses.”

For the second time in a week, supporters of the opposition and the government took their disputes to the streets.

“What we are doing doesn’t help anyone but the real enemy,” Siniora said in an allusion to Israel. “Know that my heart is with Lebanon,” he added.

The initial fight Thursday broke out in a cafeteria Beirut Arab University in the Tariq al-Jdideh neighborhood. Two students – one a supporter of the Future Movement and the other a Hizbullah partisan – exchanged insults, with one spitting at the other.

From there, it escalated into a mainly Sunni-Shiite clash, escalating from fists to clubs to gunfire and Molotov cocktails.

The initial fight trapped many people, including local high-school students, in the midst of the clashes until they were escorted out by the army.

Supporters from pro-government Sunni parties and their Shiite counterparts, Amal and Hizbullah, quickly arrived at the scene for a face-off. Both young and old men wielded stones, wrapped chains around their necks and even carried stylized batons – hand-painted and sharpened, with special grips made of tape.

“This is war,” Ali, a Future Movement backer and resident of Tariq al-Jdideh, told The Daily Star as stones flew nearby.

If this is war, then some of America’s greatest cities have suffered from it as well. But it’s close. Simple arguments and exchanges of insults over political views are turning into neighborhood wide street fights. What Nasrallah intended to be an event to strike fear into the hearts of rival politicians, with all his threats of escalation, has caused them to lash back. Go figure?

Here is a list of some of the things I’ve noticed that have changed over the past couple of days since the shutdown, beside the obvious:

• Prime Minister Siniora has actually referred to Hezbollah as terrorists committing terrorist acts, rather than a militia or the opposition. He has also said that they are directly ordered in their doings by Syria and Iran. This marks a huge change to how the government views Hezbollah.
• Nasrallah is in retreat over the shutdown. While he and Aoun promised escalation at first, Nasrallah held off. Today, after the clashes erupted, Nasrallah issued a fatwa telling everyone to cooperate with the army and stay off of the streets during the curfew. Yet despite his public orders all this time, there have still be clashes.
• While Hezbollah built up a lot of street cred because of the summer war with Israel, a lot of people are having a change of heart. Many still agree with its positions overall, but the way that this situation has escalated has put them off from their tactics completely.
• One last thing about Nasrallah; the man has gone bonkers. Between blaming Israel, calling the government a militia, saying that government supporters are causing all the violence, extolling Lebanese sovereignty, and suddenly becoming a peacenik, Nasrallah has shown himself to be afraid of his own creation. His actions caused this and now he is backing away.

What has to be realized by the Lebanese people now is that Hezbollah is nothing more than a criminal gang bent on bringing Lebanon to the brink for his own benefit. With the possibility of civil war looming large, no one stands to benefit from such an outcome. This is why even Nasrallah himself has had to back away. He will be blamed for such a war. Only someone that is truly unLebanese would submit the country to that scenario again.

UPDATE: Michael Totten also thinks that Nasrallah is in a bind, while Charles Malik says that Hezbollah has lost control of its supporters. Glad to see that I’m not the only one hypothesizing this!