Lebanon

  An Israeli artillery unit fires a shell towards Lebanon from its position near the Israeli-Lebanese border August 9, 2006. Israel decided on Wednesday to expand its ground offensive in Lebanon, and Hizbollah's leader vowed to turn southern Lebanon into a graveyard for Israeli troops and to unleash more rockets on the city of Haifa. REUTERS/Yonathan Weitzman   Five years ago today, the thirty-four day Israel-Hezbollah war began when a Hezbollah team crossed into Israel near the the village of Shtula and ambushed Israeli soldiers on patrol, killing three and taking two others back into Lebanon. Israel responded militarily by implementing well-rehearsed contingency plans that targeted bridges and access roads leading from the abuduction site, suspected Hezbollah rocket locations, the Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, and Hezbollah’s Al Manar television station—which was knocked off the air for a full two minutes.  On the first day of the air strikes, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, predicted to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni that “It’ll be over tonight. A few hours. Maybe tomorrow morning.” Thirty-three days later a ceasefire negotiated by the United Nations went into effect. Though civilians (overwhelmingly Lebanese) and combatants on both sides suffered, the Israel-Hezbollah war was essentially a draw, with Hezbollah projecting itself as the winner for standing up to one of the most powerful militaries in the world. Foreign militaries (and insurgents), academics, and historians analyze Israeli military operations very closely for lessons that can be applied in comparable settings. Presented below are the ten best assessments of what happened a half decade ago between Israel and Hezbollah.  1. Final Report of the Commission to Investigate the Lebanon Campaign in 2006, “Winograd Commission,” January 2008.  Chaired by former Justice Eliyahu Winograd, this group of experts was appointed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with a wide mandate. A forty-one point unclassified version of its report determined “overall” the war was “a serious missed opportunity,” with “serious failings and shortcomings” at the highest levels of political-military decisionmaking and in the “quality of preparedness, decisionmaking and performance in the IDF high command.”  2. Benjamin Lambeth, Air Operations in Israel’s War Against Hezbollah: Learning from Lebanon and Getting It Right in Gaza (Washington, D.C.: RAND Corporation, 2011).  Lambeth’s unmatched analysis revealed the disconnect between the policy goals outlined by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the military missions assigned to Lt. Gen. Halutz, who Lambeth interviewed.  Disconnect between policy goals and military missions: sound familiar?  3. Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, 34 days: Israel, Hezbollah and the War in Lebanon (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).  These two well-connected Haaretz correspondents provide the most comprehensive retelling of the war, with special attention paid to the prime minister’s poor strategic judgment and leadership, and internal infighting of Olmert’s cabinet.  4. Daniel Byman, A High Price: The Triumph and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011).  In this excellent analytical overview of Israel’s counterterrorism policies since 1948, Byman offers chapters on the “false promise of normalcy” that settled over Lebanon after Israel’s military withdrawal in May 2000. He also examines the IDF’s failure to maintain its armed forces at a high level of readiness and Hezbollah’s exploitation of Israel’s widespread casualty aversion. 5. Matt Mathews, We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War, Long War Series Occasional Paper, no. 26 (Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, 2008).  Emphasizing the unsurprising nature of the conflict’s outcome, Matthews details the development of the IDF and Hezbollah’s doctrine and planning concepts before July 2006. He also gives a detailed assessment of the failed Israeli ground incursion into southern Lebanon, warning: “While the U.S. Army must be proficient in conducting major combat operations around the world, it is possible that years of irregular operations have chipped away at this capability, not unlike the situation encountered by the IDF.”  6. William Arkin, Divining Victory: Airpower in the Israel-Hezbollah War (Maxwell, AL: Air University Press, 2007).  From a brilliant and original airpower thinker, Arkin combines his vast understanding of targeting strategy with on-site inspections in Lebanon, concluding that “Israel bombed too much and bombed the wrong targets, falling back upon cookie cutter conventional targeting in attacking traditional military objects.”  7. Sarah Kreps, The 2006 Lebanon War: Lessons Learned, Parameters, Spring 2007.  Kreps criticizes the airpower-centric Israeli strategy in the 2006 war, arguing that only a comprehensive strategy that integrates airpower and military force can be successful against a well-entrenched and dispersed adversary like Hezbollah.  8. Daniel Byman and Steven Simon, “The No-Win Zone: An After-Action Report from Lebanon,” The National Interest, November/December 2006.  Byman and Simon assess the winners and losers of the Israel-Lebanon war, and draw some preliminary lessons—especially the need for a consistent and credible information strategy—from a conflict that no side could view as an unequivocal success.  9. UN Security Council Resolution 1701  This August 2006 UN Security Council Resolution calls for “the immediate cessation by [Hezbollah] of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations” in Lebanon, as well as the expanded presence of  15,000 UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers. (3PA Extra Credit: The UN secretary general’s most recent report on implementation of resolution 1701.)  10. Daniel Kurtzer, A Third Lebanon War, Council on Foreign Relations, July 2010.   Kurtzer’s Contingency Planning Memo discusses the most plausible scenarios and associated warning signs of a "Third Lebanon War," its implications for the United States, and U.S. policy options to reduce the likelihood of renewed Israel-Hezbollah conflict and mitigate the consequences should it occur.

The turmoil in Syria has left Lebanon’s own political situation completely in flux. Months ago, Hezbollah arranged for Najib Mikati to become prime minister. Mikati is a Sunni, as Lebanon’s constitution requires, but he was not the true representative of the country’s Sunni community. That man was Saad Hariri, forced out of the government by Hezbollah and its allies. But the new arrangement, finally consummated today with a vote of confidence for Mikati in Lebanon’s parliament, is dead before it starts. It reflects the old balance of power, when Hezbollah’s ally Bashar al-Assad was fully in charge in Syria. Today the Assad regime is foundering, and its influence in Lebanon will continue to diminish as players make their own new bets about life in Lebanon after the Assads are gone from Syria. The best way to understand events in Lebanon is to read the columns of Michael Young, opinion editor of the English-language Daily Star newspaper of Beirut. Young’s most recent column is reprinted below, for as always he provides insight and clarity. Najib Mikati, our own dead man walking By Michael Young Last Saturday, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary general, did more to discredit Prime Minister Najib Mikati than did all the sour statements issued by March 14. In rejecting any cooperation with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Nasrallah undermined Mikati’s acrobatic efforts to reassure the international community that Lebanon would fulfill its international obligations. Rather than react to this humiliation by responding to his alleged political comrade, Mikati instead warned March 14 last Monday, on the eve of the parliamentary session preceding a vote of confidence, that “sabotaging the nation is a crime.” Such an act would indeed be a crime, one the former majority should stray away from. But one has to be serious: If anything will sabotage the nation, it’s a statement to the effect that the special tribunal, and implicitly the Lebanese authorities, will never arrest the four suspects in the assassination of Rafik Hariri. “They cannot find them or arrest them in 30 days or 60 days, or in a year, two years, 30 years or 300 years,” Nasrallah told his audience, explaining most transparently that he bows to no nation, least of all the nation in whose government he has two ministers. Mikati must feel himself being sucked into a maelstrom he cannot withstand. Things looked simpler in January, when he took a political risk in standing against Saad Hariri and getting the nod as prime minister. Mikati thought that he could embody a Saudi-Syrian understanding over Lebanon, which had escaped Hariri. He also believed that he enjoyed support from France and Qatar, and no opposition from the United States. Perhaps he even imagined that these advantages would compel March 14 to enter a national-unity government. These were more or less defensible calculations to make, except for two things: The Saudis and Syrians had explored ways to break off altogether Lebanon’s relationship with the special tribunal. Mikati, in contrast, has never publicly shown a willingness to go that far. And he knew that foreign endorsement of his team, as well as acceptance by March 14, would hinge on displaying clarity toward U.N. resolutions. Mikati’s fortunes took a slide immediately after his appointment. Syrian friends, the Turks and the Qataris were more unhappy with Hariri’s ouster than it initially appeared, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed this to President Bashar Assad at a February meeting in Aleppo. Damascus paused, as it did again when demonstrations began against President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Why impose a hasty outcome in Beirut, the Syrians seemed think, amid so much regional volatility? Better to wait and see. So, Mikati waited and what we saw was the outbreak of an emancipation movement in Syria. Suddenly, the prime minister-designate’s world started unraveling. Mikati had counted on his good rapport with Assad to provide a counterweight to his new and troublesome political associates, Hezbollah and Michel Aoun. The Syrians were, at least for the moment, out of the picture, focusing on repression at home. Mikati realized that a poorly balanced Cabinet could mean his utter marginalization. His Sunni base in the north was surveying events in Syria with growing discontent. And so Mikati had no choice but to delay putting a government together. Shrewdly, Aoun read Mikati’s motives correctly and pursued his maximalist demands on ministerial portfolios, sensing there was no point in conceding anything if a government was deferred. Like Hezbollah he waited for the situation to change, and it did once the Assads realized that they had a full-blown insurrection on their hands, one with existential implications. Lebanon had initially been viewed by the Syrian regime as a hostage which it could destabilize to warn outside countries against weakening the Syrian regime. Then Bashar Assad and his acolytes reconsidered, sensing that the country would be more useful as a pliable weapon in Syria’s hands. After Walid Jumblatt met with Assad on June 9, word came down that the Lebanese had to reach an agreement quickly on forming a government. Mikati managed to get two more Sunnis than Shiites, and with Jumblatt and President Michel Sleiman has 11 ministers. This provides the three, who make up a so-called “centralist bloc,” with veto power over government decisions. However, the numbers are symbolic. The prime minister knows perfectly well that Jumblatt’s and Sleiman’s margin of maneuver, like his own, is almost nil. Then Nasrallah put everything into perspective Saturday night. What should Mikati do about it? It’s probably too late for him to salvage his political career. The prime minister is the prisoner of partners whose priorities can only sink him and his agenda. With the tribunal indictment out, Mikati will find himself protecting Hezbollah against a widespread perception among Sunnis that the party helped murder their pre-eminent communal representative. As the carnage continues in Syria, Mikati can prepare for more headaches. His electorate fears for Syria’s Sunnis against an Assad-led military onslaught. As for the prime minister’s latitude to resign against Syria’s wishes and bring down the government, it is very narrow indeed. Such a move would not only spell an end to Mikati’s brief political audition, it would probably come with a financial price, since Mikati’s M1 Group owns the largest single share in a South African company operating one of the mobile networks in Syria. Now, with Nasrallah renewing his condemnation of the special tribunal, Mikati’s government is on a collision course with the U.N. and the international community. The prime minister pitiably articulated that Lebanon, even if it was not quite committed to international resolutions, nonetheless would “respect” them. But in just a few sentences Nasrallah affirmed that the government could employ whatever language it desired, but the reality was that Hezbollah defined the red lines of the government’s actions, not Najib Mikati. The prime minister’s fate is now tied to Bashar Assad’s. If the Syrian regime goes, Mikati will follow. The problem is that if Assad stays, Mikati will remain a cipher, even less consequential than was Salim al-Hoss when he headed the first government under President Emile Lahoud. Mikati’s foes want to see him politically debilitated; but the prime minister’s problem is that most of his colleagues in government want that too, for it ensures that he remains their man. Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR and author of “The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon’s Life Struggle” (Simon & Schuster), listed as one of the 10 notable books of 2010 by The Wall Street Journal. He tweets @BeirutCalling.

People wave Egyptian flags during a pro-democracy rally at Tahrir Square, in Cairo (Peter Andrews/Courtesy Reuters) I will be blogging from Cairo all next week. In the meantime, enjoy this week’s installment of Weekend Reading. Sandmonkey expresses two main concerns about the new “National Coalition for Egypt”. Op-ed from Al-Masry Al-Youm: Are We Still Khaled Saeed? A look at the new government in Lebanon. Full text of al-Qaeda’s statement naming Ayman al-Zawahiri as its new leader.

A woman weaves a carpet at a factory in Mashad, east of Tehran (Caren Firouz/Courtesy Reuters) Qifa Nabki on the Lebanese stalemate in forming a new government. Joshua Landis on Syria Comment discusses the "split" in Syria. Rachid Ghannouchi on the role of political Islam in post-revolutionary Tunisia. Al Jazeera: US and Saudi dynamics in Yemen. Al-Masry Al-Youm: The role of local governments in reforming Egypt.

On April 6, Hamas terrorists fired a Russian Kornet laser-guided missile at a school bus in southern Israel. How did Hamas get such a missile? It turns out that Russia does not license others to produce this missile; every single Kornet is manufactured in Russia at the KBP factory. The KBP web site helpfully touts all the wonderful qualities of this weapon. So how did Hamas get its hands on the Kornet it used to try to kill dozens of Israeli schoolchildren? Syria is the obvious guess, as Russia sells Kornets to Syria and Syria maintains close relations with Hamas and Hezbollah. The United States has previously sanctioned the KBP plant for providing missiles to Syria that then reached Hezbollah, as this Israeli news item notes. The only thing we don’t know is whether it was Hezbollah or Syria who turned Kornets over to Hamas. The ultimate culprit remains Russia, which is selling Syria missiles that it has every reason to know will be given to terrorist groups. Russia is of course a member of the Middle East Quartet, whose goal is supposed to be peace—not arms supplies to terrorists. If the scheduled Quartet meeting takes place this Friday, April 15, Sec. Clinton should lead off by telling Russia Foreign Minister Lavrov that this must stop. A discussion of how Russian arms get to terrorists who murder Israelis would be a great deal more useful than hours of debate over what tactics to use in the United Nations. Meanwhile, the Assad regime’s cozy relations with terrorists groups provides yet another reason we should hope the people of Syria are successful in their efforts to rid themselves of the odious dictatorship under which they live.

On Saturday the Arab League unanimously called for a no-fly zone over Libya, adding its voice to that of the Gulf Cooperation Council. The no-fly zone will have to come soon unless it will serve mostly to protect the corpses of Libyan opposition fighters. In the last few days, Gaddafi’s forces have reversed the earlier opposition momentum and are using their superior fire power, including air power, to wipe out opposition gains. Unless stopped, in the coming weeks they will wipe out the opposition. This situation calls for actions that display American leadership, but the president appears to believe that his words have an almost magical power. He has called for Gaddafi to leave; isn’t that enough?  "We are slowly tightening the noose," the president said on March 11, despite all evidence to the  contrary. Actual leadership has been avoided and Secretary Clinton has in fact said we wish to avoid it.  "I think it’s very important that this not be a U.S.-led effort," she explained on March 9th. What explains this gap between Gaddafi gains on the ground, and the administration’s continuing inaction and claims of progress? I can think of only two explanations. First, the president continues to believe that our support for any cause taints it. The best example is his defense of his failure to support the Green Movement in Iran after the June 2009 elections were stolen, on the ground that we might weaken the movement by associating ourselves with it. Similar views were expressed when Egyptians began to rise up against Mubarak. This strikes me as a product of very old, discredited views on the American left, which has long argued that America is hated all over the world, that our intervention only worsens things, and that the use of American power makes the world a worse place. The president contradicted these views in his Nobel lecture, but they seem still to animate U.S. policy. Second, the president seems unwilling to challenge the unpersuasive and unexplained assertions of the top military officials that such a no-fly zone would be a huge strain on American resources. But there is another view: “This is a pretty easy problem, for crying out loud," said the former chief of staff of the Air Force, Gen. Merrill McPeak. “I can’t imagine an easier military problem. If we can’t impose a no-fly zone over a not even third-rate military power like Libya, then we ought to take a hell of a lot of our military budget and spend it on something usable....Just flying a few jets across the top of the friendlies would probably be enough to ground the Libyan Air Force, which is the objective....If we can’t do this, what can we do?" The president appears to be relying on Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen, who oppose action, without reaching out for any alternative views-- such as might be provided not only by McPeak but by his predecessors and successors in the USAF. Other advisers might be asked to spell out what happens if Gaddafi wins -- beats the United States, one might say. The human toll will predictably be enormous, as revenge is taken and future revolts are made impossible. (In fact it is worth reminding the President that the human toll may be so great that he feels intervention is unavoidable. But that intervention will come later and be more difficult, and the failure to prevent mass killing would rightly be laid at his door.) It is plausible to see the Gaddafi regime, which would be clinging to power after Europe, the United States, and the Arab League had turned against it, seeking support from rogue regimes like Venezuela, North Korea, or Iran, engaging again in terrorism, and once again building a nuclear weapons program. Certainly the lesson for other regimes would be that mass violence against your own population pays: don’t compromise, don’t leave, just shoot. Recently the administration said we were attempting to measure international support for action on Libya. Such questions have been answered by the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League, but in any event that was the wrong question. The role of the United States is to marshal international support, not measure it. That support is far more likely to be there if we say we have made a decision than if we just say "gee, we don’t know what to think, what do you guys think?" The president spoke with powerful imagery of a "noose" around Gaddafi, but a noose is a physical object, not constructed out of words. It is time for the president to give meaning to the policy he says we have adopted, and substitute action for resolutions, speeches, and press conferences. Or as it was once so memorably put, let’s roll.

Here is a link to the testimony I gave on February 9 to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on developments in the Middle East. When a video link is available, I will add it.

Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Nasrallah speaks in Beirut suburbs (Jamal Saidi/Courtesy Reuters) The influence of the United States in the Middle East is declining while that of Iran is rising. That’s the meaning of events in Lebanon, where Hezbollah has in essence thrown Prime Minister Saad Hariri from office and is about to choose his successor. Under Lebanon’s constitution, the prime minister must be a Sunni. But Najib Mikati, the Hezbollah designee, is a Sunni who will owe his office not to support in the Sunni community but to Hezbollah’s decision to make him PM. Hezbollah now has the votes in parliament to put him in, and of course to throw him out should he cross them. Mikati will be a competent official; he’s a talented man and a hugely successful businessman. That’s not the point. He has close ties to Syria and Hezbollah, and it is clear which side is in power in Lebanon. Lebanese prime minister-designate Mikati attends a news conference in Baabda (Jamal Saidi/Courtesy Reuters) One can argue that this outcome has been inevitable since May 2008, when Hezbollah sent its forces into the streets of Beirut to show that it could and would use its army against non-Shiite Lebanese—and the United States, France, the Saudis and other supporters of an independent Lebanon did nothing. But that’s three years ago and only now has Hezbollah defied the rest of the Lebanese population and demanded that it name the Sunni who will lead the government. This reflects the continuing reduction in American sway in the region, and especially the “engagement” with Syria. The last straw may have been the decision to send an ambassador to Syria by recess appointment despite the Senate’s unwillingness to confirm the administration’s candidate. That foolish gesture must have indicated to the Syrians and to Hezbollah that the administration had learned nothing from two years of insults and rebuffs by Damascus. What now? Beyond the speeches, two issues arise. The first is how Lebanon’s Christians and Sunnis will conduct themselves (the Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, has thrown in with Hezbollah). Will they keep up a political resistance to Hezbollah and to its hand-picked prime minister, with votes in parliament, demonstrations, and requests for international support? Will they, for example, ask the Obama Administration and the Government of France, and indeed the Arab League, to refuse to receive Mikati, and try to make it impossible for him to keep his poisoned office? Second, will the United States make it clear that a Hezbollah-governed Lebanon cannot be our partner? Hezbollah’s power grab is a consequential event for the Middle East. Hezbollah claims that it is the “Resistance” but that mantle now moves to the other side, the March 14 movement that has won Lebanon’s recent elections. The key questions now are whether they will resist, and whether we will back them.

A supporter waves a Lebanese flag over thousands of anti-Syrian protesters during a rally in Beirut March 14, 2005. (Damir Sagolj/Courtesy Reuters) Newspapers today are reporting that Hezbollah-backed members of parliament have withdrawn from the Lebanese government, effectively bringing down  the coalition led by Prime Minister Saad Hariri. In 2005 the leading citizen of Lebanon, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was murdered by a gigantic car bomb that killed 22 other people as well. An international commission was established to investigate the murder, and is soon to report its findings. By all accounts it will accuse Hezbollah of being at least partly responsible. Hezbollah is demanding that the Government of Lebanon reject the findings, a particularly poignant demand for the current Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, as it was his father who was assassinated in 2005. In any normal country this demand would be rejected easily, but Lebanon is not a normal country. Hezbollah’s power comes less from its popularity among Shia Lebanese than from its army, which is far stronger than the official Lebanese Armed Forces. After Hariri’s killing, mass demonstrations on March 14, 2005 led to the expulsion of Syria’s occupation forces and to new elections. From then to the spring of 2008 Lebanon enjoyed a period of true democracy—but one embittered by the assassination of many leading journalists and political figures (almost all of them Christian) who were enemies of Syria and its occupation. In this brief period France and the United States strongly supported Lebanon, verbally and financially, symbolized by Secretary of State Rice’s visits there and the visits to the White House of then-Prime Minister Siniora, the Maronite patriarch Cardinal Sfeir, and many other Lebanese leaders. But Hezbollah called the bluff in May 2008, in essence telling their fellow Lebanese they were willing to fight and to kill to have their way (and scores were killed)—and daring them to fight back. Hezbollah showed that it was prepared to use its forces against the people of Lebanon, despite its claims that the purpose of the force is only to maintain a “Resistance” against Israel. Neither the Christians, the Druze, nor the Sunnis were prepared to fight, nor were France or the United States willing to send troops or countenance another Lebanese civil war. Since then Hezbollah has been holding the entire country hostage while arming itself to the teeth with the help of Syria and Iran. Today’s Hezbollah resignation from the government, where it formally held minority status, is a threat to every Lebanese. If Hariri complies with Hezbollah’s demands, he is in my view finished as a national and as a Sunni leader, having compromised his own, his family’s, and his country’s honor. It appears that Hariri won’t do it, which is both a moral and a politically intelligent decision. Instead he and his country are left floating, trying to avoid violence that may only benefit Hezbollah and watching Saudi and Syrian mediation whose outcome for  Lebanese sovereignty is likely to be tragic. Today Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, keeps its hands around the throat of every Lebanese. “The situation surrounding the tribunal has effectively frozen all other aspects of political life,” Michael Young (opinion editor of the Beirut Daily Star and the best commentator on Lebanese affairs) said yesterday; “We are effectively in a political deadlock, and I think this will last.” The United States has been firm, verbally, in backing Hariri and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which is perhaps all we can do for now; in the long run, the greatest contribution we can make would be to reassert American influence in the region and diminish the sense that Iran and its ally Hezbollah are the rising powers. We should also make it very clear that sending an ambassador to Damascus—and I, like Young, believe that was an error—was not meant to symbolize a reduction in support for Lebanon or an agreement that Syria may increase its influence there. But at bottom this is far less a test of the United States than of the Lebanese. No one will resist Hezbollah unless they do. The majority of Lebanese who oppose Hezbollah, and who are mostly Maronite Catholics, Druze, and Sunni, must demonstrate that they have the will to keep their country from complete domination by the Shia terrorist group. This is asking quite a bit, to be sure, but Lebanese should have learned from the impact of their March 14, 2005 demonstrations that world support can be rallied and their opponents can pushed back. But they must take the lead. There is good reason for skepticism, from the collaborationism of the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt (who would rather switch than fight, then switch again, and then again) to the way in which the entire political establishment of Lebanon lined up to cheer the return of the terrorist and child-murderer Samir Kuntar in 2008. Those who wish Lebanon well must also hope that its political leaders and its populace show the considerable courage that this crisis demands of them.

Pending indictments in a UN tribunal could link Hezbollah and Syria to the death of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Lebanon expert Michael Young says all sides, including Saudi Arabia and the U.S., are scrambling to deal with the impact of the findings.  

Not a lot of time for blogging today. I have a post in the works for the weekend. In the meantime, things are heating up in Lebanon. Hizballah Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah, declared today that cooperating with the international tribunal investigating the murder of former Prime Minister Rafiq Harriri is an “assault” on the “resistance” (i.e. Hizballah). As anticipated, the Obama administration has started talking tough about the Syrians. Susan Rice laid into Damascus for destabilizing Lebanon. Also, Terje Roed Larsen, the UN’s Special Envoy for Lebanon called the country “hyper-dangerous.” This turn of events should not surprise anyone. The Doha Agreement of May/June 2008 never resolved the differences among Lebanon’s many factions and its foreign patrons. It was not really supposed to, however. The agreement was just a stop-gap. A year and a half later we seem to be back to a more dangerous square one. Stay tuned.

A profile of Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah.

Lebanon faces new sectarian violence, and tensions along its border with Israel threaten to boil over. CFR’s Mohamad Bazzi says to help avert conflict, Washington must eventually engage with the most powerful force in Lebanon: Hezbollah.