Gerald Seib wrote a straightforward, clear, and to-the-point column in the Wall Street Journal on the "would you meet with leaders of rogue states" 
question haunting Barack Obama – using Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s approach towards Syria as a very good example of how to do things.
Lebanon’s army stood by as the Hezbollah militia rampaged downtown Beirut and attacked the government’s offices. Its alleged rationale? The army was not going to take sides – as if "neutrality" is the call of the day when an armed militia tries to bully and dominate (if not yet overthrow) the democratically elected government.
Then equally embarrassing and stupefying but with a diametrically opposite logic all of its own, Maj. Gen. Martin Chedondo, a top Zimbabwe Army General, called on his soldiers to be "partisan" and be tools to Dictator Robert Mugabe as opposed to defending civic society:
Soldiers are not apolitical.
Only mercenaries are apolitical. We have signed up and agreed to fight and protect the ruling party‘s principles of defending the revolution. If you have other thoughts, then you should remove that uniform. (emphasis added)
All of this comes as Mugabe’s forces have proceeded to intimidate the non-violent democratic efforts of the opposition party and civil society.
Maybe if you send Zimbabwe’s army to Lebanon, and Lebanon’s to Zimbabwe, you might actually get somewhere.
With regards to the Hezbollah-Lebanon-Doha debacle, and the article by Barry Rubin that I blogged about here, I received some interesting comments from Ami Isseroff, who runs MideastWeb and who I consider one of the most thoughtful and thought-provoking analysts on the Middle East:
There is no use comparing everything bad that happens to Munich. This was more like Abbyssinia – including the toothless sanctions. Iran can only be stopped in Iran. Nothing could be done in Lebanon. As for us [in Israel], we have Iran in the north and Iran in the south. There cannot be peace as long as Hamas exists. Your Gaza correspondents are right, and the Palestinian public opinion surveys confirm that Hamas have little support. But in elections, it doesn’t matter what people think. It matters who has the most guns and counts the votes. Read the book Point of No Return about Iran/Hezbollah by Ronen Bergman . …Iran cannot be negotiated with. They will not give up until they are confronted with overwhelming and decisive force. A blockade by sea and air at least,
Barry Rubin writes a scary article about the implications of the Doha Accords, and the capitulation on Lebanon’s future made on May 21st to Hezbollah, and by extension to Iran and Syria. The capitulation came not only from the Sunni Arab world but also from France, which Rubin notes, similarly ceded Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany. Like Lebanon now, the Czechs had hoped to rely on France’s help. Another culprit is the UN, which blessed this agreement even though it contradicts prior UN resolutions requiring Hezbollah to disarm. Many more parallels to appeasement of Hitler and Winston Churchill’s observations at the time are stark. I hope Rubin is wrong about the situation, but I am afraid (as indicated earlier) that the writing is on the wall.
Al-Akhbar in Lebanon (which favors the Hezbollah opposition coalition) reports that the weakness of the Hariri Movement will create a void that will be filled by Salafi groups intent on waging Jihad to defend Sunni Islam against Shiia infidels. While the source is suspect, it evinces a real trend towards further destabilization and tribalism, which will doom Lebanon and impact the region.