I’m tempted to say “badly”, but Ed has an excellent point and I concur.

I’m with you, Jamie, I didn’t like that one bit either (I didn’t like it when such distinctions were made with the IRA/Sein Fein). Everything is such a delicate balance over there, though, that I’m willing to go along for the moment.

And how will the Baathists of Syria react? Bashar Assadís government is in danger. A major political upheaval seems likely before the end of the year. I canít see how the Baathists can continue to dominate Syria. The recent events in Lebanon show them to be nothing more than a paper tiger.

That’s a lot of firepower revved up and ready to go on the Syrian border. No doubt Bashar is following the action closely.

It will also be interesting to see what happens after the Iranian presidential “election” runoff this week.

My two shekels? I think Hezbollah will try to instigate sectarian violence. But if these groups can stick together they’ll stare Hezbollah down. The thing people should remember is that Hezbollah isn’t the normal terrorist organization. Many of their members are openly Hezbollah, and aren’t hidden away.

They live and work in close proximity with everyone else. This isn’t going to be a situation where violence will take place and nobody will know who is responsible. Instead, after decades of operating in the open, Hezbollah is uniquely vulnerable to retribution. This is probably why they haven’t struck out already.

How will Hezbollah react?

You have asked the critical question.

In the news in the past several weeks (forgive me for having no specific references) it seems to me I have read several times of the Bush administration’s having succumbed to the nonsensical idea that Hezbollah has a “political” wing that can be dealt with, as though any cash given to the “political” wing were somehow, unlike all the other money in the world, not fungible.

It is my expectation that Hezbollah, looking like a duck, quacking like a duck, and walking like a duck, will continue to act and react like exactly what it is, a…

terrorist organization!

Jamie Irons

Well, The Pope just had a blessing of the Roman Ferrari Club.

Who will bless the Beirut Carbombing Club before they take out Hariri?