Chicago Tribune makes an excellent point

Who fights for Lebanon? More than a week of Israeli airstrikes have pounded Hezbollah targets, but have also, tragically, killed Lebanese civilians. It's unclear how many rockets Hezbollah has left, but it's likely to be a considerable number. Now a full-blown Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon is hinted. Israel may calculate that it is the only way to effectively push Hezbollah far from the Israel border and silence the rocket fire into Israeli towns. But that carries huge risks. And the pressure to stop the violence is growing. On Thursday, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for an immediate halt to the escalating conflict, echoing the words of Lebanon's prime minister, Fuad Siniora. Israel faces a tough choice. If it invades, it faces the bitter prospect of a protracted war that will likely create more sympathy for Hezbollah among the Lebanese. But if it accepts a cease-fire, Hezbollah is still there, still holding kidnapped Israeli soldiers, having burnished its credentials as a real power in the region. Hezbollah's leaders will have trumped the Lebanese government and shown the world that they--and by extension, Syria and Iran--are running the country. And that would be a disastrous outcome. Lebanon, with the UN's help, finally expelled most Syrian troops and agents last year. That was an inspirational moment for the country. Its success as a democracy is crucial to reshaping the Middle East. But Siniora's government has been unable or unwilling to move on a UN directive to disarm Hezbollah and station its own army on the border with Israel. At a meeting of foreign diplomats, including U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, Siniora ripped the nations that have resisted putting pressure on Israel to halt its military operations. "Is this what the international community calls self-defense?" "Is this the price we pay for aspiring to build our democratic institutions?" No, it is, unfortunately, the price Lebanon is paying for permitting Hezbollah, a part of the government, to pursue its own belligerent foreign policy. Lebanon has some 70,000 troops doing ... what? The standard explanation is that the government is too weak, too divided, and that ordering the Army to disarm Hezbollah in the south could kindle another civil war. But UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen said in an April report that the Lebanese army could take up positions in southern Lebanon. "The Lebanese Army Command has informed me that it faces no operational constraints in creating a presence in the south ... but has not received political instructions to take such action," he wrote. Israel faces a tough choice--but Lebanon does too. Doing nothing may bring the same result as doing something: the fall of the government, a possible resurgence of civil war. But this is a government born to unite and defend Lebanon for all its citizens. Hezbollah fights for Syria and Iran. Who fights for Lebanon?