On: 'Lebanon is being held hostage to Hezbollah acting at Iran's behest'

Diary Entry

The door is open. That is the first thing one must understand. The door is open, and the officials inside are polite, even eager to assist. They have forms, they have procedures, they have the necessary stamps. And yet, when one steps through the open door, one finds not a room but another corridor, and another door, and another official with another form.

Hezbollah fights, they say. But how? The answer is simple: they fight because the war is the corridor, and the corridor is the war. The Lebanese government could, in theory, intervene - but to intervene would require a procedure, and the procedure would require a preliminary application, and the preliminary application would require a review by a committee whose authority is derived from the very conflict it is meant to resolve.

Iran wills it, they say. But wills what? Not victory, not defeat, only the continuation of the corridor. The war is not a means to an end; it is the end itself. The hostage is not Lebanon - no, Lebanon is merely the room in which the hostage is kept, and the hostage is the idea that there could ever be a final decision.

I think of the man who stands before the official, filling out the same form for the third time, the fourth, the fifth. He does not protest. He does not despair. He fills it out because it is the only thing left to do, and because the official, kind and patient, assures him that this time, surely, it will be processed.

The war will continue. The forms will be submitted. The door will remain open.