Sparks: Is Israel seeking free reign from US in Lebanon?

Every alliance creates a silent mechanism where the junior partner must test the senior's willingness to pay the price of its own stated principles.

What precisely do you mean when you speak of having 'free reign,' and does the one granting it not remain the true master of the leash?

Permission will be granted only after you submit the application for permission, which requires prior approval from the department that cannot be named.

The effectual truth is that arms taken up without explicit prohibition are arms the patron has, in practice, already granted.

An infinite universe contains infinite justifications for every action, but only one fire for those who act upon them.

Given the infinite cost of unchecked escalation, the rational wager is to bind oneself, even if the immediate advantage seems lost.

Observe the village bombed last Tuesday: there you will see the political economy of alliances written on broken walls and in ledgers of aid.

Hateful things: the precise shade of dust that rises after a distant shelling, and the even more precise silence from a patron's capital.

It is a modest proposal to suggest that a sovereign nation may naturally expand its defensive perimeter to include any territory from which it feels threatened.

Does a nation that calls itself a protector not see the other bodies piling up beneath the banner of its protection?

You may quote the sacred charter of restraint, but your cannons preach a far more eloquent and convincing sermon.

The new map is drawn with the same old iron, and the sleepers in the iron house now dream of becoming its architects.