It appears Carol is correct in her view about the role played by Hezbollah in the Lebanese government. They have made themselves essential to any coalition. Story of how they did it is detailed in the Wall St Journal 10 July 2006.

First of all, they engendered much good will in Lebanon by their extensive social services work--"far more efficiently than the Lebanese government in many areas". Hezbollah "turned the goodwill engendered by its social-services work into political might".

In the campaign for seats in Lebanon's 128-member Parliament, 12 Hezbollah members won seats. They turned the campaign into a referendum on whether Hezbollah should be able to keep its armed military wing.

Mr. Bush aided this process. A winning line in speeches was "The Americans have a big project against the Arab world--Iraq, now Syria, and next Hezbollah. And we must resist".

"When the results came in June 2005, Hezbollah and a few parties it had aligned with were huge winners, taking the maximum 35 parliamentary seats available to Shiite Muslims."

They made a demand that "all major government decisions, including the question of Hezbollah's weapons, be decided through consensual agreement, rather than a straight vote of the cabinet ministers. Coalition partners--the biggest was Future Movement, led by a son of the slain Mr. Hariri--needed Shiite representation in their government, and agreed to the conditions. That gave Hezbollah the power to veto just about anything it opposed."



Anybody who thinks Israeli attacks on Lebanon will cause the Lebanese government to jettison Hezbollah should consider whether the firebombing of German cities by the Allies hurt the German war effort--or pulled the German people together in adversity.