It is not impossible, but it's damned difficult to understand all of the chess pieces on the tangled board that is the Middle East. I'm still fascinated by the possibility of major changes but this stuff is as byzantine as it gets.
I started on an angle to determine the extent to which Hezbollah is Iranian. The cats over at Beirut to the Beltway consistently refer to them as 'Iranian Hezbollah'. Wikipedia is my constant guide in this. But there's little in their remarks that suggest they are other than a native Shia movement of Lebanon, despite the news that they will almost inevitably be resupplied with missiles by Iran after any cessation of current hostilities. Moreover there is this piece that identifies Imad Mughniyeh as the key individual linking Iran with the military tactics of Hezbollah.
But there's also the Amal Movement, which apparently had been effectively disarmed in the wake of the Lebanese Civil War. All I ever remember hearing about was the 'Amal Militia'. They too are Shia but have thier disagreements with Hezbollah. Wiki is a little light on anything Amal has done other than battle, but battle they did. Which took me to the War of the Camps. Now there are no numbers here but this is another angle which puts the relative violence of Israel into perspective as I was attempting to do earlier. Clearly the PLO was a huge instigator all over the map. I really had no idea they caused so much trouble in so many places. Even on talk radio people make excuses for the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. Before I actually read it, I was bound to believe it was strictly an Israeli vs Palestinian thing, and had you asked me where those camps were, I'd have guessed West Bank or Gaza. Strike one more blow against ignorance.
So now I am somewhat prepared to understand where Amal might come into this picture as a party to 'ceasefire', which in fact cannot be a real ceasefire because the sanctions would go against Lebanon if Hezbollah renegs. They sided with Syria because at some point Hafez Assad was trying to beat down the influence of Hezbollah. Assad being Alawite and all. So now that Amal disarmed nicely, they'll probably play to get more political power in Lebanon (or at least I would hope) in terms of seats in the Parliament. That might satisfy Shia in Lebanon who are willing to blame Hezbollah as a puppet and provacateur.
Part of the impetus to figure this out was the suggestion by Nulan that suicide bombing is an Arab tactic which has nothing to do with religious fanatacism. That may or may not be, but I'm not trying to be an enemy of Islam anyway. Still I cannot understand why so many groups would be at each others throats politically and violently if they weren't sectarian hostilities. I don't care who they are, but what they do.
Israel is showing a clear pattern of running roughshod over these groups without much regard for the territorial sovereignty of Lebanon. If nobody is inviting them, which doesn't appear to be the case at Sabra, then they're getting away with murder. I don't think anyone expects them to be anything more than extraordinarily defensive. You'd think these small Lebanese groups would get it by now, but everybody seems to be taking orders from God.
So the UN is now in the process of hearing all of the third parties and puppet masters drone on about which side of the Blue Line everybody should stay, with some special exceptions for the Shebaa Farms and god knows what else. UNIFIL will be back in the picture, not that they ever left or did anything in the first place.
My head hasn't exploded yet...
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