Lebanese Government Is Expected to Collapse

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Hezbollah and its allies threatened to withdraw from Lebanon’s government on Wednesday, a move that would force it to dissolve and deepen a crisis over a United Nations-backed tribunal investigating the assassination of a former prime minister.

The threat returned Lebanon to familiar terrain, where Hezbollah and its foes have wrestled over the direction of the small Mediterranean country since Rafik Hariri was killed in a bombing along Beirut’s seafront in 2005. Twenty-two other people died in the attack. Since then, the tribunal has investigated his death and is now widely expected to indict members of Hezbollah, the country’s powerful Shiite Muslim movement.

Hezbollah has denied involvement and denounced the tribunal as an “Israeli project.” It has urged his son, Prime Minister Saad Hariri, to reject its findings. Mr. Hariri, who was in Washington on Wednesday to meet President Obama, has so far resisted the pressure.

A withdrawal by Hezbollah’s ministers and their allies from the government would mark the worst crisis in Lebanon since 2008, when an agreement reached in Qatar achieved a truce to end sectarian clashes that killed 81 people and brought Lebanon to the brink of a renewal of its 15-year civil war, which ended in 1990.

“We were committed but they were not,” said Ammar Houri, a lawmaker with Mr. Hariri’s bloc. He added that Mr. Hariri’s allies were meeting to decide the next step.

There was a sense of inevitability to the resignation threat. For months, Hezbollah has warned that it would not stand by as its members were accused of involvement in the assassination of Mr. Hariri’s father. Though it is technically part of the opposition, Hezbollah joined a unity government formed after elections in June 2009. It has emerged as the single most powerful force in the country, aided by its alliance with a powerful Christian general and the fracturing of its foes.

The decision to resign came after the collapse of talks between Saudi Arabia and Syria aimed at easing the political tension. The two countries have backed rival camps in Lebanon since 2005 and their initiative was seen across the political spectrum as the best chance to end the stalemate. But Tuesday night, Michel Aoun, a former general and Hezbollah’s Christian ally, announced the two sides were unable to reach an agreement.

“The initiative has ended with no result,” he said.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that 11 ministers of the 30-member cabinet would resign on Wednesday, forcing the government to dissolve. He said the ministers would blame their resignation on the cabinet’s refusal to convene an emergency session to take a position on the international court.

The prospect of the government’s collapse sent a wave of anxiety through Lebanon, which has seen only brief periods of calm since Mr. Hariri’s killing and has often found itself perched between the competing agendas of Hezbollah allies _ Iran and Syria — and Mr. Hariri’s supporters, in particular the United States and Saudi Arabia.

“The Saudi-Syrian initiative was an attempt to prevent strife in the country,” said Walid Sukkariyeh, a lawmaker allied with Hezbollah’s bloc in Parliament.

A leading opposition newspaper, Al Akhbar, underlined the sense of unease with an editorial headlined, “The beginning of the unknown.”