Never has there been a greater amoral concept than stability. Anchormen and women, self-ordained geopolitical experts, Middle East "regional analysts," and retired colonels and generals love to sit in their Situation Room thinking-chairs and visibly vex whether or not a particular initiative will disturb the secular god Stability and her almighty compatriot Capitulation. "How dare someone be brazen enough to disrupt the easy, somewhat tolerable status quo of an unelected kleptocracy?" "Who in their right mind brashly challenges murderers at a time when they are tepid between murders?"

The whole idea that the intolerant should be tolerated, fascists appeased, and totalitarians included in "unity" infant parliaments to simply not upset "regional stability" is complete nonsense. Israel's decision to war back against Hamas and Hezbollah is as much a no-brainer as Lebanon's decision to politically incorporate jihadists was, as we now see, national suicide. Israel, a tiny, barren state the size of New Jersey, has, for more than a half-century -- and more than a half-dozen times -- successfully humiliated various allied Arab armies of an oil-rich subcontinent bent on its liquidation (in rather quick timing, no less). There is no reason to believe the outcome will be anything different today against Hassan Nasrallah's militarily humorous ragtag guerrilla group in the Bekaa Valley.

While there is good reason to perhaps postpone Hezbollah's inevitable doom a day or two -- to implement emergency evacuations to Cyprus, for some humanitarian considerations, etc. -- the idea that Tel Aviv should allow an Iranian proxy to continue to go unbombed for the sake of preserving stability is about as dangerous a suggestion as there can be.

< br> Where has stability gotten the Arab-Persian world, after all? The stability of a shah led to a Shi'ite fanaticism unmatched. A royal family's stabile oil-pumping ways converts petrodollars into windfall subsidies for radical Wahhabi clerics from Waziristan to Brooklyn. Mr. Mubarak's stability brought us a popular Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaidists of Egyptian nationality, and the crushing of democrats like Ayman Nour.

For all the talk about how dethroning Saddam led to the "destabilization of Iraq," rarely can someone name another Arab state where the vote, not the gun, rules the day; or where hundreds of thousands of Muslim soldiers fight and annihilate their coreligionists, brethren, and in some cases, their own countrymen for opposing the concept of constitutional self-rule. But by contrast, pundits have keenly pointed out that, having finally confronted Hamas and Hezbollah, the Israelis are angering and undermining the foremost worthy Palestinian and Lebanese democrats, Mahmoud Abbas and Fouad Siniora. Abbas and Siniora, good men no doubt, now must bear responsibility when the countrymen they represent sadly suffer at the hands of justified Israeli counterterrorism efforts.

New democracies and democratizing states will invariably come to this very crossroads, especially in the Middle East where individuals and asymmetrical groups and militias can derail an entire nation's progress. Either the democrats control their territory, establish sovereignty, disband jihadist militias, and arrest terrorists, or foreign powers will do it on their own. It is true that this will "inflame" the "Arab street" and cause hatred by the likes of an otherwise ally like Siniora. Where the divergence in opinion occurs is one side presents this reality as evidence enough to stop killing the killers, whereas others accept this sober assessment but still truck on.

You can dislike Israelis and Americans and still fight terrorism. Not everyone in the U.S.-backed Iraqi parliament -- or in the Iraqi army -- likes the United States. Hell, not everyone in South Korea, France, Japan, or Belgium likes Americans either. That's fine. You don't need to vote Bush, appreciate American tanks rolling through your streets, or hum pro-Israeli hymns to understand, as these governments and armies in question understand, that the enemy is al Qaida and Hezbollah, not Israel, terrorism, not Washington, and fascism, not Western classical liberalism or a mythological neoconservatism.

Lebanon must learn that lesson. Its greatest blunder was to allow theocrats to participate in a democratic experiment. Of course, fear of excluding "parties" and "blocs" -- like the terrorist bloc, Hezbollah -- was driven by fear of destabilization and instability. When the Syrians withdrew, after killing their fair share of journalists and dissidents, the Lebanese should have openly embraced a temporary violent period -- also known as Resolution 1559 -- and disbanded and disarmed Hezbollah. The hierarchs like Nasrallah should have been detained, its militia dissolved, and its politicos the subject of a national referendum to see if they ought to be allowed to run for government. Nobody is suggesting every parliamentarian must hold an anti-Syrian point of view -- the president, Lahoud, condones Damascus as he sun tans in his Speedos every afternoon -- but mingling with a fascistic terrorist organization, or including them in the "political process," is intolerable.

< br> So what should be done? Sadly everything that is being done in Iraq, minus overt foreign occupation. The airstrikes ought to continue for however long it takes to ensure Hezbollah's military capabilities are neutralized. This means no camp, no base, no headquarter, no rocket-launch site left undestroyed. A temperate estimate for the duration of this period is one to two weeks, three tops. By this time, some, if not most, of Hezbollah's primary leadership should be deflowering virgins in paradise. The lasting top dogs will seek refuge and perhaps even remain at large for quite a while. We can expect these particular terrorists, very much akin to al Qaida in early 2002, to decentralize, retreat into nearby host states, urban hideouts, and mountainous terrain for safety after losing all territory and organizational chain-of-command.

Once this is complete, perhaps by mid-August, an assortment of objectives must be met. The infant Lebanese parliament must purge Hezbollah's backers out, perhaps replacing those ministries by holding singular national elections, granting those spots to other blocs. By this time a low-level Hezbollah insurrection is of course possible. Iran will moan, but with Tehran's group mostly in shambles, those still alive would probably attempt to create an Iraq-clone situation where insecurity is prevalent. Prime Minister Siniora must recognize the legitimacy of Res. 1559, the illegitimacy of Hezbollah, and the absolute lunacy in an independent militia having the power to unilaterally bring a government to war, and that government without the power to unilaterally rid itself of that militia. Imagine the KKK telling the Pentagon what to do.

From here, the blueprint is an essential rerun of the Philippines, or perhaps on a more low-key scale, Algeria: allow SOCOM to do what it does best, empower the Beirut government, dissect the Lebanese military, cleanse it of Iranian influence, and train the native forces that genuinely want sovereignty to hunt down all remnants of Hezbollah. This could be a U.S. or U.N.-backed initiative… it doesn't really matter, because sole Lebanese accountability ultimately rests with the people of Lebanon, not Green Berets or blue helmets. If done properly, this will lead to a semblance of greater autonomy, and therefore peace, and by default democratic stability -- true stability -- the only kind that really matters. Lebanese soldiers, empowered by international aid and oversight, will be fighting and stabilizing their own independence and self-sufficiency, not standing helplessly next to jihadist parades.