You have to give it to Hezbollah. The former Lebanese Shiite terrorist organization turned political party, which still maintains Lebanon's most powerful militia, knows how to take thuggishness to a whole different level. The faction doesn't have to send its suicide bombers on missions to make its point anymore. That's so 90s.

And let's be clear: Aside from civilian hostages it took in the 1980s, which were indisputable acts of terrorism, Hezbollah's targets have been military--the Israeli occupation until 2000, and then skirmishes with Israeli patrols, and of course the 2006 war.


That's why calling Hezbollah a terrorist organization, still, is simplistic, and misses the point. Hezbollah's rain of missiles on Israeli civilian zones in 2006 was different from Israel's rain of bombs on Lebanese civilian zones only to the extent that Israel's rain was more like a monsoon, a Hezbollah's more of a drizzle. This is not to defend Hezbollah in the least. But as a indiscriminately destructive force, it cannot compare to the Israeli military.

That said, Hezbollah's beef these days is not with Israel, but with Lebanon itself--in other words, Hezbollah is fomenting war with itself, since Hezbollah is essentially a Lebanese organization. It should not be confused with Iran, even if Iran is, or tries to be--in competition with Syria--Hezbollah's chief sponsor. One thing to remember about Hezbollah in particular and the Lebanese in general: they may have sponsors, but they drive those sponsors nuts, the way Israel can drive the United States nuts, because sponsorship seldom means control.

Ultimately, Hezbollah decides its own fate in Lebanon just as Israel decides its own in Israel, regardless of the dollars and missiles both get from their supplies.

But Hezbollah is against the ropes, reputation wise. It can no longer claim to be Lebanon's liberator since Israel has left Lebanese territory (though Hezbollah still banks mostly on its bogus image of a "resistance" army). Its legitimacy as a team player in Lebanon is nil, especially after its thuggish seizure of Beirut in 2008, to make the point that it alone is the reigning military force inside Lebanon. And now some of its members are about to be indicted by a United Nations-backed tribunal for their role in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. That's been causing a furor within Hezbollah, which is threatening war again.

"Simply put," Thanassis Cambanis, author of A Privilege to Die: Inside Hezbollah's Legions and Their Endless War Against Israel, wrote in The Times, "Hezbollah cannot afford the blow to its popular legitimacy that would occur if it is pinned with the Hariri killing. The group’s power depends on the unconditional backing of its roughly 1 million supporters. Its constituents are the only audience that matters to Hezbollah, which styles itself as sole protector of Arab dignity from humiliation by Israel and the United States. These supporters will be hard-pressed to understand, much less forgive, their party if it is proved to have killed a leader who was loved by the nation’s Sunni Muslims and also respected by Christians, Druze and even many Shiites, who form Hezbollah’s core support. That is why Hezbollah denies any role in the assassination even though it has unabashedly taken responsibility for destabilizing moves like setting off the 2006 war with Israel or pushing Lebanon to the brink of civil war in 2008."

On Jan. 12, 2010, Hezbollah's members of the Lebanese parliament resigned, forcing a collapse of the government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Rafik's son, who is a Sunni.

What next?

Saad Hariri was in Washington, meeting with President Obama on Wednesday. But by then he was a nobody again: he had no government to represent, he no longer was prime minister, forcing the Obama administration itself to pretend as if he did, because that's all they have to deal with now: the semblance, or symbol, of a minister.

It's not the first time Lebanon has been on the brink of civil war again. It's been flirting with that brink for several years. The unity government it formed after its last crisis in 2008 was a reprieve. But the underlying divisions in the country, as in Iraq, have never been resolved. Sop the Lebanese keep feeling that it's a matter of time before another breakdown. That would be a terrible shame, considering the vibrant rebuilding that took place after the end of the war in 1990, and again after Israel demolished so much of Lebanon's infrastructure during the 2006 war with Hezbollah.

Two big dangers loom over Lebanon: Hezbollah's conflict with the central government (whatever that government is now), and Hezbollah's sulfurous conflict with Israel, which has been on hold, more or less, since 2006, but only to the extent that it's allowed both sides to rearm. Hezbollah is now believed to have 50,000 missiles, many of them able to reach Tel Aviv. Israel will not allow another war to be as inconclusive as the 2006 war. If the two sides go at it, this seventh Arab-Israeli war could put all previous ones to shame. Shamefully.

So The Times had it right when it summed up the situation in a news dispatch in mid-January this way: "With Hezbollah’s toppling of the Lebanese government, the militant Shiite Muslim movement entered what may prove to be one of the most dangerous chapters in a 30-year history that has made it reviled in the West and popular in the Arab world: At the moment seemingly of its greatest power, the path facing it could unveil its most glaring weaknesses."

Cambanis also seemed on point when he concluded a recent column entitled "Hezbollah's Latest Suicide Mission" this way: "The odds of this strategy succeeding are not great: Hezbollah is likely to emerge the end winner because it is willing to sacrifice the Lebanese state to maintain its standing in the Middle East and its perpetual war against Israel. But Lebanon’s lonely prime minister has no better choice than to play the long shot for a just resolution; otherwise, he’ll become a steward of Hezbollah’s impunity."