Lebanon: Failed state

Crossposted on Pajamas Media.

It'll take me a little bit to ease back into blogging on a regular basis after a sort-of-absence while I was vacationing in Washington.

But I want to address the fighting, or should I say, the war, along the Lebanese-Israeli border.

While watching Fox News Dayside, one of the guests mentioned that the terrorist forces of Hezbollah are stronger than the armed forces of the government of Lebanon.

That's the problem here. (Yeah, I know about the "root causes," the Balfour Declaration, the 1948 partions, the the Six Day War, the Lebanese Civil War..., but I'd like to keep this post under 500 paragraphs.)

Lebanon, in short, is not a true nation-state, it does not have control of its borders (does anyone seriously think Hezbollah manufactures those missiles they're firing into Israel?)--and it appears powerless in preventing Hezbollah (its flag is pictured above) from operating within.

Let's turn things around a bit: Say, the Aryan Nation gang sets up base north of the Canadian border in Alberta and they kidnap a couple of US Border Patrol agents.
Of course, the American goverment will contact the Canadian ambassador in Washington, and tell that diplomat to find those agents and send them back back to the States unharmed.

If the Canadian government is unable or unwilling to do anything to compel the Aryan Nation to surrender the agents, and the Aryans start firing missiles into Billings, the US Military response would be quite similar to that of the Israelis.

Luckily for the United States, Canada is not a failed state. Lebanon is.

Technorati tags: لبنان Lebanon Israel Terrorism حزب الله‬ Hezbollah Terrorism World War III