At it again

Hezbollah took the government's move to close its telecommunications network as a "declaration of war", and started shooting up the place in response. The army has started rumbling that it won't tolerate more of this shit. Mr Hariri demanded the fighting stop immediately and gunmen from both sides be pulled off the streets in order "to save Lebanon from hell". UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged both sides "to cease immediately these riots and to re-open all roads in the country". The US government also called on Hezbollah and the opposition to "start playing a constructive role and stop their disruptive activities". "Hezbollah needs to make a choice - be a terrorist organisation or be a political party, but quit trying to be both," a US spokesman said.

Rico says everyone should back off and let the Lebanese finally get around to destroying themselves; it's been a fiction of a country for a decade, and it's time to play out the end game and let Israel and Syria carve the place up...