Many in Beirut say U.S. failure to stop Israel’s onslaught against Hezbollah last summer crippled the Lebanese government — a U.S. ally — while strengthening Hezbollah — a U.S. enemy. That created an environment in which the Shiite Muslim militia could call for overthrowing Sunni Muslim Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and his Cabinet.

“Hezbollah has more support in the population now because they are the ‘victorious resistance,’” said Cabinet member Ahmed Fatfat. “And it weakened the government because we did not get any concessions ... the last war was a disaster for Lebanon and the image of the United States.”

Fatfat, like several other Cabinet members, has been in hiding at the government building in downtown Beirut for days as tens of thousands of protesters outside demand a new administration led by Hezbollah, a group that’s on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

The standoff between Shiite Hezbollah and its allies and the Christian and Sunni government has sparked street fighting in Beirut’s neighborhoods and raised the specter of civil war.

It also has underscored a belief among some regional leaders that the United States has lost its footing in the Middle East. Last week, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended in Washington that the Bush administration reach out to Syria and Iran — U.S. foes — in a search for ways to resolve Iraq’s violence. The group called for Syria to cease aid to Hezbollah and to stop trying to topple Saniora’s government as part of a deal that might include Israel returning the Golan Heights to Syria.

But those suggestions seem behind the times as Hezbollah presses its campaign to force Saniora out.

Fatfat and other Lebanese officials said that while there was a complex set of reasons for the crisis — Syria is trying to derail a tribunal from investigating Syrian participation in political assassinations; Shiites long have felt underrepresented by their government; Iran is pushing against U.S. interests across the region — the conditions largely were set by U.S. actions during the conflict last summer.

The fighting began in July when Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, an act that began weeks of thunderous Israeli bombing and artillery barrages — often using munitions bought from U.S. suppliers — that killed at least 1,000 Lebanese, mostly civilians. Hezbollah answered by launching hundreds of rockets into Israel.

Saniora pleaded with U.S. officials to intervene, but for weeks Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and others said there first must be a “durable solution,” meaning primarily that Hezbollah had to be contained and then disarmed.

As the fighting stretched on for more than a month and the Bush administration didn’t intervene, Saniora looked ineffectual, a nearly unforgivable sin in a region in which military force and political strength often are synonymous.

Asked for comment, a representative at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut referred a McClatchy reporter to remarks by Rice last summer in which she said any peace deal had to ensure that Lebanon didn’t return to its “status quo,” again meaning that Hezbollah must be brought under control.

But Hezbollah now appears more in control than ever.