Storm Clouds Gather

Walid Jumblatt, the leader of Lebanon's Druze minority, is prone to hot air, tossing off bon mots and insults from his remote ancestral fastness in the Chouf mountains. (Memorable quotes include calling Bashar al Assad a "half ape", Condoleezza Rice "oil-colored" and Tony Blair "a peacock with a sexual complex.") But one thing he's good at is sensing the way the wind blows, accommodating himself to the Syrians in the 1980's and 1990's when they occupied Lebanon, and then jumping ship for the Bush administration, which helped push Syria out in 2005.

So its more than a little disturbing when Walid the weathervane says the forecast calls for civil war. In a speech on Sunday, Jumblatt sounded resigned to its inevitability. Addressing himself to Hizballah and the rest of the Syrian-backed opposition that has threatened to return to the streets if the current American government doesn't step down, he said:

"If you think we will stand arms crossed, you are imagining things. If you want chaos, we welcome chaos. If you want war, we welcome war. We have no problem with weapons and no problem with rockets, we can take the rockets from you. We may have to burn everything, but our existence, our honor, our survival and Lebanon are more important."

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut