Adangerous uncertainty hovers over the Levant. The Lebanese have a ramshackle government with no one really in charge. An Islamist guerrilla movement, Hizbullah, is a restive partner in the country's ruling coalition while it runs its own armed statelet near the border with Israel. Syria has lost control of Lebanon but still hankers after its old dominance there; indirect talks with Israel are sputtering nowhere. Egypt, once a force in regional diplomacy, is weighed down by its own worries (see page 36). The Palestinians remain viciously split between the Islamists of Hamas, who run the Gaza Strip, and secular-minded Fatah, which runs the West Bank. Israel has a lame-duck prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who may soon be formally charged with corruption. The United States, essential for knocking heads together, has a lame-duck president whose quacks for peace have probably come too late.
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