There's a long interview with Jumblatt in Shadid's latest Washington Post article as well.

I agree; this was a terrible day for the US. Depressingly obvious that US will be blamed for death of all the kids from a precision israeli strike given how clearly US diplomacy has been designed to give the israelis a few more days (or weeks) to bomb. 80% of Lebanon presumably doesn't particularly like the US right now.

to top it off, it sure doesn't look like Israel's ground campaign has been very much more effective. I understand the right to self defense, but this whole operations looks like a double disaster. Civilian deaths from the bombs. And a ground fight that Hezbollah can claim as a victory unless something changes ...

The WP piece appears to be more or less a translation and elaboration on the same material as the Arabiyah arty I linked. Perhaps the same interview.

My working assumption has been that Hizbullah did indeed score an own goal with their initial unprovoked attack, but that the response has negated that and then some, and finally that a cleverer response would have saved lots of lives and property, and weakened Hizbullah considerably. I haven't seen much from non-Lebs about this though. I'd love to see an elaboration on this by you.

Well, I have my instincts....

I also note this piece of depressing but entirely unsurprising news:

"But a recent survey of college students in the region -- done before Israel's re-invasion of Lebanon -- says U.S. policies on Israel and in Iraq are such that "these networks may be completely unable to change opinions on these two issues."

The survey, an unscientific sampling of attitudes of 394 university communications students in such places as Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Morocco, found that these young people listened to Radio Sawa's pop music, but there was "no significant relationship between the frequency of listening to Radio Sawa and favorability toward US foreign policy." The same held true for al-Hurra.

Worse yet, the more they listened, the less they liked us, according to the new study, "U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Arab World," published in the current Global Media and Communication. "One significant finding," said author Mohammed el-Nawawy of Queens University of Charlotte, "is that respondents' attitudes toward U.S. foreign policy have worsened slightly since their exposure to Radio Sawa and Television Alhurra."

I frankly don't listen often to either, but certainly impresionistically it always felt - as I have long noted - as if they were merely translating American points of view, not interpreting them in such a manner as to convince. The difference between making an engaged argument to win over the listener and merely talking at someone.

Incompetence. Incompetence from too much self-regarding navel-gazing whanking on for self-pleasure.