Much as I respect Robert Fisk’s work it seems to me that he is too close to his subject when covering Lebanon.
I appreciate he has vastly more knowledge of the situation than just about any other english speaker, but he appears to have difficulty in writing objectively on the shia anywhere in the ME but most of all those of Lebanon, where his sympathy with the xtians sticks out like the proverbial.
That may be why he couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge the depth of Hezbolla’s victory until it couldn’t be ignored any longer.
That said I can’t help but feel this result is too good to be true. That is most Lebanese are now united (Fisk and a few other eltitists excepted), and Israel finally cowed to the point where they will have to talk to Lebanon rather than descending on them every few years and kicking the shit outta them until they believe that the Lebanese have become sufficiently malleable.
Things have gone so badly for Olmert the Oaf and not much better for BushCo who hasn’t been getting anything like the hoped for traction from the exploding aeroplane gag, that both of them must be considering whether one more roll of the dice might give them a better number.
Wannabe chiefs of staff in Jerusalem and Washington are explaining exactly how they would have done it to anyone that will listen. So I betcha some research organisation in amerika is right now tryin to find out if the negatives of being suspected of breaking the ceasefire will outweigh the positives of really kicking some arab ass this time.
Remembering that these guys seem to live life in a world of personal invincibility, all these recent setbacks may have done is convince them that they must ‘win’ this time.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 16 2006 11:27 utc | 2