Every Man For Himself And God Against Them All»

You know who knows a ton about Lebanon and Hezbollah? Abu Muqawama. Get ready for some blogging-on-the-graduate-studies-level!

Hizbollah may very well get the government to back down from their positions on both the telecommunications system and, more likely, Wafiq Shoucair. (Although the international community — and the international business community — is not going to rest easy on the accusations Hizbollah is spying on flights landing at the airport.) But the fact is, if civil war does break out, Hizbollah is going to get the blame from basically everyone but Syria, Iran, and other Shia worldwide. This is not 2006 and this is not Israel that Hizbollah is staring down. This is 2008 and these are other Lebanese — Sunni and Druze and Christian. Hizbollah can’t count on the support from anyone but a few pariah states, and though Abu Muqawama is not quick to start quoting U.S. government officials in times like these, what Zalmay Khalilzad said yesterday probably sums up what a lot of folks are feeling, that Hezbollah had “made progress in establishing a state within a state. They have not implemented agreements and resolutions with regard to disarming their militia. That in turn is encouraging other groups to rearm as well. There is a lack of progress because of their opposition in terms of the election of a president, although everyone has agreed on Mr. Suleiman.”

Hizbollah will claim that’s not a fair representation of the realities in Beirut. And Hizbollah — and the Shia — have legitimate political greivences within what passes for a political system in Lebanon. But if things continue to go to guns, they will get all the blame for the new civil war because following the last civil war, they were the only group that was allowed to keep their weapons. (Well, they and the Palestinian militants.) Is Hizbollah ready to take on the blame for this in the same way the PLO (unjustly) took all the blame for the last war?