This week Hizbullah became the true ruler of Lebanon. Hassan Nasralla, Hizbullah leader, repeated that dictum we’ve heard so many times in history, “I am the state and the state is me.” And so it was.

The external parties responsible are mainly the United States of Bushism and Israel.

Israel can be thanked for its supremely counterproductive bombing (and particularly cluster bombing designed to kill civilians only) of Lebanon in 2006.

The Bushites may take credit for failing to support moderate Shia groups which do exist in significant numbers in Lebanon as an alternative to Iran’s Hizbullah. The Bushites for failing to get involved in mediating a compromise government when there still was a chance. The Bushites for failing to move aid to the south after the Israeli attack, and according to many Lebanese who love to throw blame at the US no matter what useless clowns we have in authority, a further endless list of crimes of inaction.

But most of all, the Lebanese may be blamed for tolerating Hizbullah’s rise and celebrating their win over Israel when in truth they were celebrating their own defeat.

According to Fisk, the most reliable madman to report on Lebanon, this isn’t about religion. I call bollocks; it’s always about religion because organized religion is about power and power is everything to those who don’t have any over themselves. Today it was a political issue but once power is ceded to the radicals all those who thought it was a simple matter of political representation are going to wake up and smell the blood.

At home in the US, we have old folks who just can’t bring their racism addled minds to vote for Barak Obama, citing reliable publications like the National Enquirer for their reasons against him. So there’s a very real danger of McCain flip flopping his way into office to continue the same old idiocy in Middle East policy that has been reinforced for the last 25 years.