I wish the Israelis and Lebanese had done this earlier, but what if ....

[Stinky The Clown]

.... the two work together to root out Hezbollah?

The Lebanese government has said it cannot control Hezbollah, but has also given signals that it would like to.

An Iraeli leader more interested in peace than anything else would have engaged in honest discussions with his neighbor to the north to find ways to help with that.

A Lebanese leader more interested in peace than anything else would have looked to his militarily superior neighbor to the south and engaged in honest discussions to request their help with that.

A stable Lebanon is in Israel's best interest. A stable Lebanon is in Lebanon's best interest.

The risk in such discussions - and in such an alliance - is that Lebanon could be seen in parts of the Arab world as capitulating to Israel. But is that wrong? Is it capitulating? Did Egypt, et al, capitulate in making peace with Israel after their several wars?

Rice in the region today will not address this, sadly. She is the emmisary of the US Neocons who want to inflame the region and engage both Syria and Iran.

[Kagemusha]

1. Rice will not address this? Actually this is her longer term goal

but Bush wanted Israel to get more time to pound Hezbollah into the dirt before involving the Lebanese government to make the job easier and more palatable.

The problem is that Israel greatly underestimated the difficulty of the task and it's not going as well as hoped.

[Larkspur]

2. Didn't the Lebanese government say that the will fight WITH Hezbollah

to push back the Israelis?

[Stinky The Clown]

4. Yes, I think they did ......

.... that's kinda expected and understandable, I suppose. Hezbollah, after all, is both Lebanese and holds seats in the government.

I have to wonder how much of that statement's sentiment is real and how much is simply politically correct.

[Igel]

3. It wouldn't happen.

The hate on the ground is too intense, and was too intense before Hezbollah made its raid. If the occupation didn't produce enough hate, the pan-Arab humiliation over many lost wars, and having Palestinians ejected from the land Allah gave the Muslims, would do it--it wasn't completely revenged by Hezbollah's studly forcing of Israel to withdraw. But having many of the mosques controlled by imams that routinely fan the simultaneous feelings of victimization and superiority certainly helped.

When Nasrallah can go and say, with a straight face, that having Hezbollah bombed is all about winning Lebanese independence, one wonders exactly what he's been doped with.

When the Shi'ite members of the cabinet could stage a walkout when Siniora gave a speech saying that Hezbollah was a militia that needed to be disarmed, it was a sign that things were going to end badly. They returned only when Siniora said Lebanon was proud of Hezbollah, the resistance.

Your solution is the common sense one, one that could have been achieved in other ways. Lebanon could have asked for non-Israeli help in disarming Hezbollah; it could have even *prevented* Hezbollah's continued arming. But the Lebanese that didn't want an armed militia around preferred to pretend there wasn't a problem, as long as only Israel was attacked; and the Lebanese that liked Hezbollah around made it clear they really liked having it around, and it wasn't only Israel that could be attacked.

La Signora de Beirut had no other politically viable option but to play kick the can. He knew it looked like a grenade; he just hoped it wouldn't explode during his tenure.

[endarkenment]

5. Hezbollah is the major political party of the 35-40% shiite population

They are a major player in the Lebanese government. Just how is that government going to 'root out' Hezbollah? Further, the last thing any Lebanese wants is to restart the incredibly awful bloody sectarian civil war.

Hezbollah is a political fact of life. How this came to be is another story, but those who think they can just be exterminated or 'rooted out' or whatever other euphemism one wants for killing them all, is either misinformed or delusional or being dishonest about the reality of the situation.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. Why do you think rooting them out means killing them?

It could also mean allowing them to exist but stopping their militia. For them to be a political party is one thing. For them to be a militia armed for solely the destruction of Isreal is another thing.

[endarkenment]

7. That is a misunderstanding of Lebanese reality.

Political parties in Lebanon are also militias and have been for a very long time. That is the reality. Hezbollah is not 'armed solely for the destruction of Israel'. You might want to do some research on the history of Hezbollah and why it has become so powerful in Lebanon. The civil war in Lebanon is in ceasefire mode, with all sides agreeing to not kill each other, but that is not the same as all sides agreeing to disarm. Hezbollahs support within the Shiite community is based on its ability to drive the IDF out of south Lebanon, its huge humanitarian network that provides extensive social services within the shiite community, and its political wing which has become the representative voice of the shiite community in the Lebanese government.

If you did not mean 'exterminate' by 'root out' I apologize. The term is used frequently here and elsewhere to mean just that.

The relationship of Hezbollah to the Shiite community is very similar to the relationship of the IRA to the Catholic community of Nohern Ireland. The solution the Lebanese have chosen, like the Irish with Sinn Fein, is to work with the political wing of Hezbollah to bring them into the normal political process, not to root them out, by force or otherwise. The Lebanese have chosen their path to peace.