"Chosen to Sit This One Out"?

Via Dan Drezner comes a Michael Totten post at Instapundit:

Aside from my personal affection for Lebanon, the country where I recently lived, the only country other than the US where I've ever lived, this is what anguishes me the most: The Arab world's only democracy is being torn to pieces by another democracy.

But it's telling, I think, that the Lebanese army, the fighting institution that represents democratic Lebanon and not just one totalitarian-sponsored political party, has chosen to sit this one out.

A country's army that "sits out" an attack on its citizens can hardly be described as a citizen's army. But it is nice to see Totten implicitly acknowledge that Israel is at war not with Hezbollah, but Lebanon itself. And Drezner refers his readers to a book one might wish W had carried around as if he were reading it.

Cross-posted at Marginal Utility)