It started as a protest against power cuts in a Shia Muslim suburb of Beirut but within hours had morphed into riots, with young men pelting stones at soldiers, burning tyres and blocking roads. By midnight on the Sunday before last, seven protesters had died and the image of the army, one of the few institutions around which Lebanon could still rally, had taken a blow.

As squabbling factions - the pro-western government and the opposition, led by pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian parties - traded accusations of responsibility, the only thing everyone agreed on was that the country had taken yet another step towards the abyss.