Chertoff: Hezbollah Makes al-Qaeda Look "Minor League"

The left will just call this blustering and lash out that Chertoff in particular and the Bush administration in general is making Hezbollah seem worse than they are but the DHS Secretary does make a salient point:

JERUSALEM — Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff warned Thursday that the radical Islamic group Hezbollah "makes Al Qaeda look like a minor league team," and poses the greatest threat to national security.

"Someone described Hezbollah like the A-team of terrorists in terms of capabilities, in terms of range of weapons they have, in terms of internal discipline," Chertoff told FOX News. "To be honest, they make Al Qaeda look like a minor league team.

"They have been more disciplined, and they've been in some senses more restrained in the kinds of attacks they carry out ... in recent years, but that's not something we can take for granted," he warned.

Left unsaid by Chertoff is that the reason al-Qaeda is a lesser foe is solely because our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq have decimated them. Hezbollah by contrast has been relatively unscathed by the GWOT with the exception of the Israeli offensive in the recent past that didn't go so well for the army carrying the Star of David. They've been allowed to grow and gain political clout thanks to backing by Syria and Iran and have become the most-dangerous terror group on the planet.

Many don't recall but it was those Arabs of Palestinian descent that created modern terrorism. Nasrallah and his followers have that knowledge, a gaggle of money and a strong presence in the political process of Lebanon. A deadly combo no matter what prism it's viewed through.

Exit question: Now that Hezbollah has 37 seats in the Lebanese parliament and has veto authority, would any attack on US interests be considered an attack by Lebanon?