Word: hizballah
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...their compound, on a hill outside the city, thanks to security procedures that treat this normally fun-loving Mediterranean country as if it were Iraq or Sudan. That's because the previous embassy was destroyed by a suicide car bombing in 1983, an attack that the U.S. blames on Hizballah, the Shi'ite Muslim Party of God that had been formed a year earlier to resist the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. But this café meeting was taking place in the spring of 2005, after mass demonstrations and U.S. pressure had helped force one of Hizballah's patron states, Syria...
...more apprehensive about Lebanon's future, perhaps because I'd been covering not just the anti-Syrian Cedar Revolution demonstrations, but also ones organized by Hizballah, which viewed the effort to push Syria out of Lebanon as a rearguard attack against the anti-Israeli resistance. It seemed to me that leaving Hizballah, Lebanon's largest political party and its only armed militia, out of calculations for the future was unwise. "Do you ever have any contact with Hizballah these days?" I asked the official. Not only is it illegal for U.S. government officials to have dealings with terrorist organizations...
...since then, the Party of God has not just survived U.S. attempts to isolate it; Hizballah has thrived. In 2006, it turned back an Israeli invasion. Last spring, its militia defeated forces loyal to the U.S.-backed government in a street battle that lasted mere hours. Now a Hizballah-led political coalition is poised to do well in parliamentary elections on June 7. And even if Hizballah doesn't triumph, it is in de facto control of the Lebanese state, able to arm and train its military wing with impunity, and to project the power of its sponsors - Syria...
...Hizballah victory at the polls would put the Obama Administration in a quandary: should the U.S. continue to support a country that is run by what it designates as a terrorist organization? So far, U.S. officials have said only that they will review American aid to Lebanon - $1.1 billion since 2006 - in the event of a Hizballah victory. But any review of U.S. policy toward Lebanon also needs to ask: is it time to talk with Hizballah...
From its early days of car bombs and kidnappings, Hizballah has matured into one of the world's most formidable guerilla forces. The group continues to have legitimacy among many Lebanese because it - not the Lebanese Army or the United Nations - forced Israel out of southern Lebanon in 2000 after 18 years of occupation. But instead of encouraging Israel to settle the grievances left over from that occupation, U.S. policy has focused on disarming Hizballah by force. This culminated in 2006 with the Bush Administration giving Israel the green light to bomb Hizballah into submission. But that war only reinforced...