Still, and as I mentioned earlier, Hezbollah may have bitten off more than it can chew:

“Hezbollah is powerful, but so are the Druze and other Lebanese sects,” says Lebanese political analyst Elie Fawaz. “This is what the ferocious fights of the Chouf have proven.”

Fawaz tells me that Hezbollah’s battlefield tactics have proven woefully inadequate against the pro-government forces in the mountains above Beirut. And, he says, those tactics have – in many quarters – backed Hezbollah into strategically difficult positions, compelling the terrorist group to hold covert, indirect talks with members of the pro-democracy March 14 coalition “to get Hezbollah out of the mess it has gotten itself into.”

So far Hezbollah has avoided the largely Christian areas of Lebanon. The group has instead concentrated its offensive operations in west Beirut (which it has now largely withdrawn from), the mountains east of the capital, the Bekaa Valley further east, and in the north in-and-around the city of Tripoli. If Hezbollah has any strategic sense remaining – which I don’t believe it has ever truly possessed – it will keep out of the Christian areas, because it is the Christian areas where the terrorist group will truly take a beating.

As I have said on multiple occasions, Lebanon is a crucial front on the war on terror. The front is now critical. The Lebanese armed forces and the national police have a real opportunity here, as does the Lebanese government and its declared Western allies like the U.S. and France. And unlike the situation on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan – where the war on terror seems to groan on-and-on – the next several days and weeks may well bring about a dramatic turn of events in Lebanon. And those who are the most committed to their causes are the ones who will gain the upper hand.