Have things gotten better or worse since the Hezbollah-Israeli war last year?
Politically, it’s become much more complicated, and probably worse, because you’ve got two or three things happening at once. There’s the internal political struggle between the government and the opposition, and there’s the complications with the Islamist militant groups, like Fatah al-Islam, which the Lebanese army has been fighting. You’ve also got rising tension with Syria, because of the U.N. Security Council’s approval of the international tribunal to try the people accused of killing former Prime Minister Hariri. These are issues that have to be confronted. But it’s going to be bumpy for a while.
