A few people with bombs

IN THE NEWS
The assassination of George Hawi, an anti-Syrian politician, in Beirut is, obviously, bad news. Is it the trigger for the return to the bad old days of the Eighties? Not yet.

What's peculiar to me about the press coverage is how quickly the finger is pointing at Syria, and not at another obvious suspect: Hezbollah. That group is (1) more likely to be able to track the movements of Lebanese politicians, (2) very skilled at blowing people up, (3) unhappy about the Syrian withdrawal, and (4) likely to be in a stronger position than many groups if Lebanon falls back into civil war.

Juan Cole, a Middle East analyst who's also a blogger, doesn't buy into the "It must be Syria!" argument either. There are a lot of suspects here, beyond just Syria and Hezbollah.

Smothering terrorist groups who might someday turn their guns and bombs on Americans (as they did in Lebanon) is a tough challenge, requiring keen insight into the messy, murky politics of other societies. But that's what the real war against terrorists is all about.

Comments

[Steven D]

Then again, I wonder if someone else is behind these bomb blasts in Syria and Iran. Hmmmm . . . . http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=14076

[Kingdaddy]

Argh. I hope this is some brainstorming session gone awry, and not anything serious. I can understand why someone might momentarily consider the idea of luring terrorists into premature attacks--assuming we can catch them BEFORE the attack is actually executed. Getting terrorists to be sloppy and expose their networks and plans is a good idea--just not this way.

Thanks for the pointer.