Hassan Nasrallah, the Shi’ite cleric who runs the "political" wing of Hezb’Allah (like the IRA, Hezb’Allah is both a terrorist movement and a political party/social movement that runs candidates in elections) said yesterday that HB wd take Syria’s side in this (everybody had been speculating where HB wd come down).

Now the interesting question is: Does Nasrallah’s announcement represent the real preferences of HB leaders in Lebanon, or was this a stance pressed on them by their paymasters in Tehran? If the latter, then US policy needs to take up the question of how to use the Lebanon/Syria imbroglio and its various angles or side-plots (the gathering prospects for an Israeli/Palestinian modus vivendi, for example) to make the tensions between HB and Tehran/Damascus worse.

If Lebanon is now causing strains between the region’s biggest terrorist group and its state sponsors, in other words, we need to find ways to make those strains as severe as we can. Keep on the pressure, Condi and W--and don’t let these $0Bs regroup.

It’s likely the French have moved teh Var into position (with follow-on forces) in the event the situation destabilizes and they have to do a NEO (non-combatant evacuation operation).