Hezbollah's last battle

It was eight days before his assassination. The powerful secretary-general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, gave his last speech the day after the pager attack. Deeply affected but not defeated, the sayyid tried his best to hold the line by reaffirming two messages he considered essential: "The Lebanese front will not stop as long as the aggression against Gaza continues;" "The important thing is not to be crushed by the blow, however strong it may be." In other words: the "resistance" might bend but will not break.Two months later, his successor, Naim Qassem, gave the green light to an agreement negotiated by the "big brother," Parliamentt Spraker Nabih Berri with U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein, which in many respects looked like a capitulation for Hezbollah. Not only did the party agree to...