An unusual visitor is being hosted by Lebanon's political leaders today: Khaled Meshaal, the head of the political bureau of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, is making the diplomatic rounds in Beirut. In the past, Hamas's primary interest had been in its activities within the Palestinian territories, and the organization had exerted only limited influence on the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

The visit puts Lebanon's pro-Western leaders, particularly Sunni leaders such as Saad Hariri, in an awkward situation. Hariri has been a vocal supporter of the Palestinian resistance, which is a prerequisite for maintaining his status as leader of Lebanese Sunnis. However, he cannot ignore the United States, which has propped up his government, and will not look kindly on Hariri's embrace of a leader they consider a terrorist.

So, why would Hamas leaders risk upsetting this delicate balance of political alliances by heading to Beirut?

It is possible that, as they feel more secure in their control of Gaza, they are looking to extend their influence to the Palestinian camps in Lebanon. They would find ample opportunity in the Ain al-Helwe camp, which has been a consistent flashpoint for violence between Palestinians loyal to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and those belonging to the disparate Islamist groups in the camp. Meshaal specifically mentioned Ain al-Helwe after meeting with Lebanese officials, calling for "the launch of a Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue to discuss all the problems of Palestinian camps, Ain el-Helwe or others."

If Hamas is indeed looking to move in on the PLO's turf in Lebanon, don't expect much from the PLO-Hamas "reconciliation" talks scheduled to take place in Cairo on Nov. 10.

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Twenty-five years ago this week, a truck laden with explosives crashed through the security gate surrounding the compound housing the U.S. Marine presence in Beirut. The suicide bomber drove straight into the lobby of the Marine barracks and detonated explosives equivalent to 12,000 pounds of TNT. The force of the explosion collapsed the building, killing 241 American servicemen.

The bombing entered the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign when John McCain bragged that he stood up to President Ronald Reagan in opposing the deployment of the Marines to Beirut because he believed "that a few hundred Marines in a situation like that could not successfully carry out any kind of peacekeeping mission."

The American "peacekeeping" in Lebanon failed because the United States never realized that there can be no such thing as peacekeepers in a country where there is no peace to keep. The Marines equated peacekeeping with supporting President Amin Gemayel, himself one of the major sectarian players in the civil war. But the more that the United States propped up Gemayel, the more they were pushed into conflict with Lebanese Druze and Muslim groups. To this day, the Marine barracks bombing remains a reminder of the dangers of getting involved in other people's wars, even with the best of intentions.

The repercussions of the attack continue to this day, both for the United States and Lebanon. The Marines did not step on Lebanese soil again for more than two decades, when they returned to help Americans evacuate during the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war.

For the Lebanese, the truck bombing marked the birth of a new form of assymetrical warfare, where small insurgency groups began to discover the weapons that would allow them to take on a militarily advanced superpower like the United States. The Marine barracks bombing was the mother of future terrorist attacks, from the World Trade Center attacks to suicide bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan, that have shaped warfare for the past generation.

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Take this with a grain of, um, arsenic, but the Iraqi Web site al-Malaf reported today that Hassan Nasrallah was poisoned last week, prompting a team of Iranian doctors to rush to Lebanon in order to save his life. The Hezbollah leader was reportedly in critical condition for a number of days before pulling through. The article quotes "diplomatic sources in Beirut" as confirming this report. But Hezbollah MP Hussein al-Hajj Hassan denounced the rumor as "a lie and a fabrication," though he admitted he had not seen Nasrallah during the past week.

Last week, the Iranian newspaper Khoursid reported that the Hezbollah leadership had chosen the head of the party's executive council, Hachem Safieddine, as Nasrallah's successor. While Hezbollah denied this story as well, some people will no doubt draw a connection between the succession chatter and rumors of Nasrallah being gravely ill. There aren't any verifiable facts in either of these pieces to draw definite conclusions. But, given Hezbollah's opaque organizational politics, those of us on the outside are often forced to sift through rumors and innuendo.

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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a decree on Tuesday that will pave the way for full diplomatic relations between Syria and Lebanon for the first time since their independence 60 years ago. The two countries will likely exchange ambassadors before the end of the year. The Syrian government has historically perceived Lebanon as a territory illegitimately carved out of Syria by the French colonial presence, a fact which accounted for their past refusal to establish formal ties.

Lebanon’s anti-Syrian leaders deserve the lion’s share of the credit for forcing Syria to accede to reality. Certainly, if Syrian intelligence services still determined the course of Lebanese politics, as they did before 2005, the Syrian government would not have seen the need to make this concession. While the anti-Syrian movement has been faulted for not fundamentally changing Lebanon's sectarian and feudal political system, the exchange of embassies shows that Lebanon's political landscape has been significantly altered during the past three years.

But rather than a sign of their success, some Lebanese commentators view the planned Syrian embassy as a threat. A Syrian embassy “would be an axis point for Syria’s allies in the country, a very useful means of allowing the Assad regime to exert its political influence in Beirut on a day-to-day basis in a way it cannot do so today,” writes Michael Young in Beirut’s Daily Star. While diplomatic recognition is a step in the right direction, it still does not mean that Syria is ready to respect the independence of its smaller neighbor.

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In the modern Middle East, victory in war is often in the eye of the beholder. Yesterday's prisoner swap between Hezbollah and Israel is no exception. Some critics say that Israel gave up too much, while others argue that the deal will only encourage future hostage-taking by the militant Lebanese Shiite group.

As Ari Shavit from Haaretz put it, "Hezbollah is bringing home a living murderer, and Israel is bringing home two dead soldiers - over whose capture it sacrificed 160 other soldiers and civilians."

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and Co. seem to agree with the Israeli critics, as they threw a huge party for their freed prisoners in Beirut, styling themselves as the victors in this fight.

Not so fast. One leading Arab newspaper, the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat, noted that, in the final analysis, the deal "cost Hezbollah over $7 billion, more than 1,200 dead and 4,500 wounded Lebanese citizens."

Ouch. That's one way to rain on a homecoming parade.

"Rocket propelled grenades" might not sound like appetizing fare, but locals are flocking to "Buns and Guns," a new fast-food restaurant in southern Lebanon, to get a taste of the explosive dish (actually just chicken on a skewer) and other arms-themed delicacies. Decorated with camoflauge netting and fake weapons, the joint is owned by Yousif Ibrahim, who explains his marketing approach this way:

My goal was to make people laugh before they ask me why weapons. The important thing is that they laugh."

But recent events in Lebanon are no laughing matter.

Clashes in northern Lebanon between anti and pro-Syrian factions have resulted in six deaths since yesterday, despite a recent political agreement that led to the election of President Michel Suleiman and progress toward creating a government of national unity. This is a troubling blow for the country, which just weeks ago was experiencing general calm and a return of an important source of income -- tourists.

Now, patrons might see less humor in "Buns and Guns," which is located in area where the militant party Hezbollah enjoys great power and popularity. Himself a Hezbollah supporter, Ibrahim makes light of accusations against the group by serving "terrorist bread" at his restaurant. But while a sandwich might not kill his customers, factional fighting in Lebanon very well could, and the recent clashes are a reminder that the country's decades-long instability is far from over. 

It seems worth pointing out that three major negotiation stories broke in the Middle East and South Asia today. Israel and Syria, technically at war since 1967, are holding historic peace talks in Turkey that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described as a "national obligation." The Lebanese government negotiated a compromise with Hezbollah, ending 18 months of violence and political deadlock. And Pakistan's government defied the U.S. by agreeing to withdraw from Taliban-controlled territory in exchange for security guarantees.

Of course, whether these agreements will hold up is another question. They also raise troubling questions about the increasing ability of terrorist groups to win concessions from governments. However, it's interesting to note that while American politicians debate the idea of negotiating with hostile regimes and religious extremists as if it were some abstract concept in an international relations seminar, the U.S.'s allies in the region are already doing it on their own.

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RAMZI HAIDAR/AFP/Getty Images

A disabled Shiite gunman roams in the streets of Beirut. Hezbollah took control over much of the city this morning.

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In the second day of an escalating standoff between the Lebanese government and Hezbollah, there are reports of at least one death and five injuries and the possibility of civil war seems less far-fetched.

The unrest first broke out after the government tried to cut into Hezbollah's operations by banning a Hezbollah-run telecommunications network in southern Lebanon. The network was likely Hezbollah's primary means of communication during its 2006 war with Israel. 

Then, reports that Hezbollah had installed cameras near the Beirut airport to monitor the movements of anti-Syria politicians -- possibly to assassinate them -- led the government to dismiss the airport's security chief. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed to keep the employee in his post and to strike back at these affronts, irking Lebanon's top Sunni leader Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani:

We used to think that Hezbollah is concerned with fighting the Israeli occupation, and all of a sudden it is turning to be a militant force to occupy Beirut, and this is why we call upon the Arab and Islamic nations to help us and stop these harmful aggressions in Lebanon."

Meanwhile, Ya Libnan makes an interesting point that Nasrallah's campaign may achieve the very thing Israeli army Chief of Staff Lt. General Dan Halutz threatened at the start of the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006: to send the country back twenty years. Hezbollah supporters' tent camps have paralyzed parts of downtown Beirut and now they are springing up along the road to the airport which will be a vital source of tourism revenue this summer. It's shaping up to be yet another example of Hezbollah's "resistance" hurting the very people it claims to fight for.

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More than three years after a massive car bomb in Beirut killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, there's been scant progress on the U.N. investigation into the culprits behind the assassination. Conspiracy theories abound. One popular among Lebanese political leaders is that notorious Hezbollah leader Imad Mougniyah was killed in Damascus in February in exchange for cooling the pressure on the Hariri tribunal, which has implicated top Syrian leaders.

Now, a key witness who implicated pro-Syrian generals in the Hariri assassination has gone missing. The family of Mohammed Zuheir al-Siddiq, a Syrian intelligence officer who had been living under house arrest in France, accuses the French government of being involved in his "liquidation." It's no wonder that the new head of the U.N. investigation is saying that he needs his June deadine extended.

And on a side note: Mougniyah is getting his own postage stamp in Iran. First-class postage.

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Al Kamen reports that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is meeting with Lebanese Maronite leader Samir Geagea, a key player in the so-called March 14 forces that comprise the current, embattled govenment. Kamen's item reminded me of the chill that went down my spine when I passed by Ehden, a town in Lebanon's beautiful Qadisha Valley, back in 2005. Here's an excerpt from the Lonely Planet book on Lebanon & Syria:

In one of the most notorious events of the war, Samir Geagea of Bcharré amassed several hundred militiamen, went into the home of Tony Franjieh (son of President Suleiman Franjieh) in Ehden and proceeded to kill him and his entire family as they slept. While this was explained by political differences between the two families, in fact it had its roots in a feud between the Geageas and the Franjiehs, which dates back to the 19th century. At that time, according to local (Bcharré) lore, a Geagea woman was killed by two Ehden men after offering them water and food. In response Bcharré's residents burden down the town of Ehden and killed many of its inhabitants.

Geagea maintains he was framed by the Syrians, but it seems fairly well established that he was at least involved, if not directly responsible for Franjieh's death. It should also be noted that the Franjieh clan has plenty of blood on its hands, too. Such is Lebanon.

I'm a pretty reliable critic of the Bush administration's policies in the Middle East, but I can usually see the logic behind them. I have to admit, though, that the decision to send the U.S.S. Cole to the Lebanese coast has stumped me. U.S. officials say their intent is to bolster the embattled Lebanese government, force a long-delayed decision on a new president, and show Syria that America means business. But what is a missile destroyer supposed to actually do in this situation? Shoot at Hezbollah? The only things this boneheaded move will accomplish are to remind the Lebanese of 1983, when U.S. warships ineffectually shelled the Chouf mountains, and embarrass Prime Minister Fouad Seniora's government. The Syrians know this well, and they will use this incident to their advantage.

It's the starkest example I've yet seen of trying to use the U.S. military to solve a political problem. The good news is that Lebanon doesn't matter as much as many people seem to think it does, so any damage done here will be limited.

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It seems like a no-brainer that Israel was behind the killing of Hezbollah leader Imad Mougniyah. Israel's Mossad doesn't blanche at assassinations; it has Jewish agents of Arab descent that can blend into a place like Damascus undetected; and the Israelis certainly have ample motive to take him out. Israeli officials, while denying their country's involvement, haven't been able to hide their glee at Mougniyah's death.

While extremely likely, it's not a slam dunk that the Mossad pulled off this hit. Sunni countries in the region -- such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia -- also have the means and the motive to get rid of him, to say nothing of the United States. Nor is it outside the realm of possibility that the Syrians or even the Iranians dropped a dime on Mougniyah in a quid pro quo arrangement with the Americans. The Syrians, though, say they have "irrefutable" evidence of the killer's identity that they will make known soon. Syria still denies involvement in a string of hits on anti-Syrian lawmakers in Lebanon, so the country doesn't have a lot of credibility these days. The revelations will certainly be interesting nonetheless. Pass the popcorn.

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Tensions have been rising in Lebanon since President Emile Lahoud stepped down in November, with an ensuing series of car bombings in the Christian areas of Beirut, the killings of opposition protesters by Lebanese Army officers, and 14 delays in presidential elections. These events are an escalation in a long period of political instability in Lebanon, including the summer war with Israel in 2006 and the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, three years ago today.

Today, two very different events took place in the tiny Mediterranean country. Hezbollah held funeral ceremonies for Imad Moughniyah, its military leader, who was assassinated Tuesday night in Damascus. Meanwhile, Lebanese government supporters gathered by the thousands, in the pouring rain, to commemorate Hariri's death. The two events happened mere miles from one another in Beirut, and tensions were understandably high. Thousands of soldiers and police were on guard to prevent the two factions from meeting.

It's easy to focus on Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah's declaration of open war on Israeli targets the world over, or the fact that Iran's foreign minister paid his respects to Mougniyah, one of the world's most notorious terrorists. Yet, there is also good news coming out of the Lebanese capital: No violent clashes have been reported from Beirut today. During their rememberances of Hariri, pro-government supporters focused on Christian-Muslim unity instead of the divisions that increase with each violent act. Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's speech calling people to attend the memorial included the following plea:

[W]e call on our brothers who have not joined us to think deeply, so that our causes can be one and they are in reality, and so our mottos can be one and our demonstrations one and victories one."

And, as a sign of demonstrators' committment to peace, church bells rang out at the same moment as the call to prayer, creating a stirring, if dissonant harmony. It's a start.

Passport contributor and Lebanon expert Andrew Exum comments on the killing of Hezbollah military chief Imad Moughniyah:

The timing of the assassination, from the perspective of Lebanese of all political stripes, could not have been worse. Tomorrow, after all, is the anniversary of the assassination of a great figure on the other side of Lebanon's current political divide, former prime minister Rafik Hariri. One hopes that calm heads will prevail and that any ostentatious rallies in Hariri’s honor are postponed. At last year's mass rally, ugly sectarian chants broke out, and surely given Beirut's current tension, such chants could easily devolve into open violence.

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This past weekend, 40 Qassam rockets fell on southern Israel. An eight-year old boy's leg was amputated as a result, and there has been a marked increase in fightin' words from Israel. Residents from the southern town of Sderot even staged mock rocket-attack drills on the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to demonstrate what it's like to live under the constant threat of attack. Israelis are boiling over despite four retaliatory air attacks in Gaza Saturday night.

Sderot's mayor stepped up the pressure on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to act, saying, "It's got to be a direct war -- killing Mr. Haniya, killing his deputy, killing all his staff, his house, his government house." (That would be the first time a Seven Questions interview subject was assassinated.) But Olmert, who seems to have become more level-headed since his widely criticized attempt to neutralize Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, responded, "[O]utrage is not a plan for action." Defense Minister Ehud Barak chimed in with an Israeli version of the Powell Doctrine: the need for clear goals, "a [political] exit plan," and international support prior to military action.

The shadow of Winograd is apparent, yet it sounds like expanded action is likely against Gaza. According to Barak, it'll happen only "when the time is right."  Hamas leaders are reported to have cut back on public appearances, and it’s clear they are taking the threats on their lives seriously. They have even pulled out the Gilad Shalit card, saying the captured Israeli soldier will never return home if Hamas leaders are assassinated. Amid this web of rhetoric, the point, as always, is that the rockets need to stop falling for peace talks and hostage negotiations to move forward. If Hamas leaders can't control the threat, Israel will have no choice but to do it for them.

Who killed Benazir Bhutto?

We may never know for sure, but it is certainly a good sign that Pakistan is turning to Scotland Yard for investigative help. Pakistani officials quickly blamed Beitullah Mehsud, a Pashtun tribal leader with ties to the Taliban and al Qaeda, but their bungled and conflicting announcements about Bhutto's cause of death have only deepened suspicions in Pakistan and abroad about some kind of cover-up. The U.S. intelligence community is reportedly withholding judgment. British investigators could help clear up some of those questions. Still, with the crime scene immediately swept clean and Bhutto in the ground, the best forensic evidence will probably not be available to them.

It's therefore likely that Bhutto's assassination will join that of former Lebanese PM Rafiq al-Hariri as an "unsolved mystery." (We're now on our third U.N. special investigator in the Hariri case, with very few little to show for it.)

Here's a photo of the two leaders from 1994:

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While it's somewhat helpful to at least appear to be keeping a process going, very few Middle East analysts are hopeful that Annapolis will bring peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

The main reason? Both Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are too weak to make a deal stick, even if the basic parameters of a peace settlement are widely known at this point.

Far more encouraging is Syria's willingness to send its deputy foreign minister to Annapolis, despite the fact that Israel bombed a suspected nuclear facility back in September. Damascus even spurned a request from the Iranians, who wanted the Syrians to stay home with them and pout, and ignored the views of their client, Hamas. The Syrians are desperate for a deal, but they don't want it to look like they're surrendering—and they don't want to burn their bridges with Tehran until they have faith that entering the Western and Arab fold will be worthwhile. Many questions remain, among them:

• Are the Syrians willing to essentially "sell out" the Palestinians and make a separate peace, à la Egypt? Or will they hold out for a comprehensive settlement?
• Is the United States willing to sell out the Siniora government? The Syrians will seek to reassert their hegemony in Lebanon as part of any bargain.
• And how to square this with Syria abandoning its support for Hezbollah, as the Israelis want?
• Is Israel willing to give up the Golan back to the 1967 lines, as the Syrians have been demanding for years?

Still, it's an encouraging sign that U.S. officials seem more open to the idea, which has been kicked around in policy circles for years, of peeling the Syrians away from their Iranian friends. And the Israelis are certainly enthusiastic about the concept, which helps:

Maybe it's time to employ the carrot to remove [Syria] from the axis of evil," the deputy chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky, said in Washington last month. This will "prevent the Iranian influence," he said.

So, while most of the media attention is going to focus on Olmert and Abbas, I'm going to be watching closely to see what how Syria handles this summit. 

Andrew Exum is one of the sharpest Middle East analysts around, especially when it comes to the byzantine, often brutal politics of the Levant. A former U.S. Army Ranger and veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Exum lived in Beirut from 2004 until 2006 and is is currently writing his doctoral dissertation in the War Studies Department of King's College London on the military evolution of Hezbollah. I asked Exum for his take on the latest bombing in Lebanon. It's all about context, he says:

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Politics in Lebanon have always been conducted with a high cost attached. Yesterday's assassination of parliamentarian Antoine Ghanim was just the latest act of horrific violence to have accompanied the Lebanese political process during that country's troubled history.

This time, the political debate in Lebanon surrounds the election of that country's next president. The decision arrives at a time in which Lebanon’s political actors are already polarized into two warring camps. Hezbollah and its allies in the Christian community (led by Michel Aoun) are on one side, demanding more representation for their constituents within the government. On the other side is the so-called March 14th coalition of Sunni Muslims, Druze, and Christians from other parties, demanding a president who will support—among other things—the investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri.

Killing Antoine Ghanim makes little sense if taken as a singular event. Instead, the assassination must be seen within the context of a systematic attempt to intimidate and/or kill off the political enemies of Syria that started in the fall of 2004 with the failed attempt on the life of Druze leader Marwan Hamade.

The next assassination—which killed Hariri and over a dozen others, including parliamentarian Basil Fleihan—started the process that led to the withdrawal of Syria's military from Lebanon. But throughout the summer of 2005 and since, the assassinations have continued even with the Syrian military presence long gone. Most of the victims have been Christian politicians, and some—such as Ghanim and Gibran Tueni, publisher of a prominent anti-Syrian daily—were killed with ruthless efficiency just days after returning to Lebanon from exile.

It is doubtful that either Hezbollah or Michel Aoun's constituents were so reckless as to have had a role in any of the killings. Besides, both groups are seeking political goals within Lebanon independent of Syria's aims.

But in the past year, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah—who condemned the latest assassination on Al-Jazeera yesterday—has often drawn a contrast between his constituents and those of the March 14th coalition: His constituents, he notes, don't have second passports like so many of the wealthier Lebanese who support March 14th. For his constituents, more is at stake because Lebanon is their only future.

That may be so, but Nasrallah's political adversaries also don't enjoy the immense security apparatus that he does. How can he taunt his political enemies, he must ask himself, when his friends in Damascus are killing them one-by-one?

HASSAN AMMAR/AFP/Getty Images

Last week, I made light of unconfirmed news reports that Syria had re-occupied a remote part of Lebanon. Yesterday, the Internets were abuzz with rumors of a Syria-Israel war, coupled with a report that Syria had told its citizens to get out of Lebanon before July 15th. Again, no major news outlets confirmed the story.

Here's what I think is happening. Neither Syria nor Israel want war. Both countries, in fact, desire peace. With very little coverage in the major U.S. newspapers, Israel and Syria have been sending each other increasingly frank signals indicating that they want to sit down and at least begin talks. At the same time, each side wants to send the message that it is prepared to resolve their differences another way (and Syria is sending its own warnings regarding Lebanon). Hence the rumors of a war that would be in neither country's interest.

Just today, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert advanced the ball, saying of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, "I am willing to sit with him if he is willing to sit with me. We'll talk about peace." The sticking point: Assad wants the United States to mediate, but the Americans don't want to let Bashar off the hook while the U.N. is still investigating the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri.

Olmert knows that both the Egypt-Israel peace agreement and the Oslo Accords began without U.S. involvement. What he does not publicly admit is that it's doubtful that each side is willing to pay the other's price right now. Assad will settle for nothing less than the full Golan Heights, while Olmert wants Syria to renounce terrorism as a tool of statecraft and break with Iran. But Assad would be a fool to do that without the kind of guarantees that only the United States can provide. And so we wait.