Maybe there is a high-fiving neoconservative "intellectual," warmonging blogger, or "axis of evil"-obsessed big-media pundit who can explain what, exactly, in this report from Lebanon -- "Hezbollah ready to act if Syria leaves Lebanon," by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, the Philadelphia Inquirer, March 10 -- is the good news:

If Syrian forces leave Lebanon in the face of growing international and Lebanese pressure, the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah appears ready to fill the military and political vacuum.

Hezbollah is entrenched in this Bekaa Valley hamlet about six miles east of the Syrian border and across much of eastern and southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah's green-and-yellow flags flutter along the streets of Baalbek. Taped to nearly every shop window and plastered across intervening concrete walls is the face of its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

Syria, whose forces have dominated Lebanon for the last three decades, is closely aligned with Nasrallah's movement and apparently has readied it to take Syria's place as Lebanon's dominant power, according to some analysts.

"The Syrians are trying to leave behind a system they can control. A pillar of that will be Hezbollah," said Michael Young, the opinion editor of Lebanon's English-language newspaper Daily Star.

I know it's a stretch, but I'm asking anyway.

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