Amir Taheri has been reading what the Arab press says in Arabic about the war in Lebanon.  He finds no unanimity on the subject of who won. One Tunisian writer has compared Nasrallah with the Mexican bandit—cum—folk hero Pancho Villa who also defied the United States and managed to get away with it for some time. Pancho Villa, he tells us, achieved nothing worthwhile but managed to make Mexicans feel good about themselves for a while. [snip] Finally, there is good news thanks to a fourth trend that can be spotted in the writings of a dozen or so Arab journalists and, more convincingly, in letters written to the editor in Arab, and in some cases, Iranian newspapers. Here, there is little sympathy for Hizbullah, which is regarded as a band of adventurers controlled by Iran. One Iraqi writer described Hizbullah as "a virus that is threatening the life of the Lebanese nation." A Saudi columnist sees the war triggered by Hizbullah as "a catastrophe" for Lebanon and...(Read Full Post)