Last week Tunisians deposed their president for life, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. So now we have the week of tear gas in the Middle East, with Arab security services and militaries pitted against their countrymen. In Egypt, riot police are firing tear gas at protesters, and the same is so in Algeria, where demonstrators are faced off against a regime that presided over a civil war costing the lives of a quarter million people. In Lebanon, where the Lebanese Armed Forces have used tear gas against demonstrators, it’s a little different. In Beirut and other cities the remnants of the March 14 pro-democracy movement have taken to the streets in a “Day of Rage” to protest what is essentially a coup d’etat engineered by a terrorist organization, Hezbollah.

Last week Hezbollah and its allies in Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s unity government brought down Hariri when they resigned from the cabinet. Hariri refused to denounce the Special Tribunal for Lebanon investigating the assassination of his father, the former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, which is expected to indict Hezbollah members for the February 2005 murder. Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare filed sealed indictments last Monday, due to be opened within the next few months, depending on whether Judge Daniel Fransen believes the prosecution has gathered enough evidence. Hezbollah General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah appears to believe they have, which is why he and his allies moved last week to bring down the government.