Someone who is on the inside and familiar with administration policy-making writes about Steven Weisman’s story today about the administration allegedly taking the Kofi line on Hezbollah:

1. NO ONE at SENIOR levels ascribes to such nonsense.
2. Hizbollah is not an independent actor. It does Iran’s and Syria’s bidding. Neither wants Syria out of Lebanon, which is PRECISELY what President Bush constantly demands: the full withdrawal of Syrian troops and military intelligence from Lebanon and FULL implementation of UN Resolution 1559 which calls for the dismantling of all militias. I guess Weisman’s sources think Presidential speeches are advisory in nature.
3. Hizbollah’s support in Lebanon is from (about) 30 to 40 percent of the Shiite community. That 30 to 40 percent supports Hizbollah because they depend on Hizbollah for basic services. If this were to change (i.e., we, France, EU, et.al, set the conditions for the Lebanese government to provide those services), there is little doubt these Shiites would act more independently.
4. Unlike the spontaneous pro-Lebanon demonstrations last week, this Hizbollah demonstration was organized well-in-advance BY THE SYRIANS. There are eyewitness accounts of hundreds of Syrian commercial busses crossing into Lebanon full of demonstrators. Also, there are accounts of large numbers of Palestinians being rousted from their refugee camps, put in dozens of commercial busses to Beirut to take part in the demonstration. Finally, many “demonstrators” spoke with Syrian accents. Syrians in Lebanon are despised by most Lebanese.
5. Finally, isn’t it just a bit odd that, here, we have thousands of people seemingly demonstrating in FAVOR of occupation?