Hezbollah would 'Alan-Deshowitz the whole STL house of cards'...

Nick Noe treats us to an advanced capsule of Bilal Saab's CSM story on the STL/ here Look for a change of government, with Mohamad Safadi as the likely PM and Walid Jumblat as the facilitator!

"Bilal has a new piece coming out this week I believe in CSM entitled “High-Stakes hinge moment for Hezbollah and Lebanon.” Two main arguments: Hizbullah is really worried about the STL .... another point is that:

“Assuming the prosecution is not derailed and no deals are made, Hezbollah has only two options if it is indicted. It can accept the charge and try to limit the costs; or it can react violently and suffer the consequences of such action. Neither bodes well.” [Bilal strongly suggests option two is the more likely one although he contradicts himself at the end of the piece by suggesting that, maybe, Hizbullah will be cautious about initiating violence.]

I think we will probably see tonight – that the violent reaction is not likely as Hizbullah does NOT NEED to react violently. Indeed I would suggest a third option – undermining the STL itself from within its own discourse and practices and from without ...... Remember the STL has been so botched, misused and problematic from the outset that there are numerous ways available whereby Hizbullah can Alan Dershowitz the whole house of cards.

So one should not get boxed into the notion that this is going to suddenly provoke a “violent extremist” Hezbollah into an angry fit of death and destruction… there are several other avenues that are far easier and better for Hezbollah and its allies – due in no small part to the way the Bush administration and Hard-Core M14 folks ruined the prospects of a decent STL that might actually have come close to achieving its lofty stated purpose(s)."