MY COLLEAGUE PATRICK LASSWELL is blogging from Northern Iraq.

AN UNUSUAL POSTCARD FROM IRAQ: Glenn asked me to help guest-blog for him while he’s away, but I haven’t really had time. I’m in Northern Iraq on a private sector consulting job and finding time to blog is a bit tough. I did, however, make it up to the mountains during the regional holiday yesterday when every office was closed.

Iraq is big and diverse. Not every place is a hot, dusty plain, and not every place is a war zone. The Kurdistan region is beautiful, prosperous, and — most importantly — safe.

THANKS TO GLENN for letting me be one-fourth of Instapundit again. It’s always a pleasure. Now I’m heading to Tel Aviv in 24 hours so I can cover the war from something other than an armchair.

THE REAL MIDDLE EAST: The Arab-Israeli war is not strictly and literally a war with Arabs on one side and Jews on the other. Aside from Israel’s quiet and fickle fair-weather supporters in Lebanon, many Israeli Arabs are now saying Finish Off Nasrallah. “I hope Nasrallah gets a rocket between the legs for what he is doing to me here, for harming grandma and grandpa.”

REUTERS ADMITS using photoshopped images of war damage from Beirut.

HEZBOLLAHLAND PHOTO GALLERY: Last year I took dozens of pictures of Hezbollah-occupied Lebanon, along the border with Israel and in the suburbs south of Beirut. Many have never been published before. You can view them here. Much of what you’ll see has since been destroyed.

RED ON RED: Radical Saudi cleric Sheik Safar al-Hawali, who inspired Osama bin Laden, says Hezbollah is not the Party of God but the Party of the Devil.

BIG SURPRISE: Lebanese officials at odds with Iran.

BACK FROM THE FRONT: Israeli soldiers describe what it’s like to fight Hezbollah in Lebanon.

FULL DISCLOSURE: For Instapundit readers unfamiliar with my biases in the Middle East (and let’s admit it, everyone who writes about the Middle East is biased in some way, especially when there’s a war) here is my explanation.

FROM BEIRUT TO JERUSALEM: Lee Smith, recently of Beirut, Lebanon, is now filing dispatches from Jerusalem.

THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF of Kuwait’s Arab Times says Hezbollah has found itself in a quagmire. (Hat tip: Stephen Meyer by email.)

WIDENING THE WAR AGAIN: Israel is bombing Christian and Sunni areas in Lebanon.

EVISCERATED: Al Bawaba says Hezbollah’s social network is torn to shreds. (Hat tip: Tony Badran via email.)

BELT OF DESTRUCTION: Here are aerial photographs of the “belt of misery,” Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs, before and after the war began.

INSIDE THE MIND OF THE ISRAELI LEFT: Many of those who pushed for Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 now say they were wrong.

NOT OVER SOON: Iran says it will supply Hezbollah with surface-to-air missiles. “Iranian authorities conveyed a message to the Hezbollah leadership that their forces would continue to receive a steady supply of weapons systems.”

BELIEVE IT ONLY WHEN YOU SEE IT: Syria says it kinda sorta maybe, if it’s not too much trouble and if they get something juicy for doing it, just might consider playing a “constructive role” in pressuring Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire on Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora’s terms.

LEBANESE BLOGGER Josey Wales fisks the useless minister of the interior.

A PEACEKEEPING DREAM TEAM: Mustafa at Beirut Spring says the international peacekeepers Lebanese can trust most would come from Canada, Brazil, and Japan.

IRAN RATCHETS UP THE BELLICOSITY. Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei: “The American regime can expect a resounding slap and a devastating fist-blow from the Muslim nation…”

LEE SMITH challenges the conventional wisdom that everyone in Lebanon loves Hezbollah now. “There are many Lebanese imagining, fantasizing, hoping against hope that Hezbollah will be wiped from the face of the earth.”

Lee is right. He and I both lived in Lebanon, and he lived there longer than I did. (He only left a few weeks ago.) Lebanon’s “support” for Hezbollah is nothing more than an attempt at national unity during a fight. It will evaporate the instant Israel leaves. It will remain, though, as long as Israel stays and throughout cease-fire talks.

OOPS! OR NOT? Hezbollah hit Jenin. In the West Bank. Palestinians cheered: “Even if it fall on our heads it wouldn’t have spoiled the party.”

HEZBOLLAH THREATENS JOURNALISTS: Christopher Allbritton, reporting from Lebanon, says “To the south, along the curve of the coast, Hizbullah is launching Katyushas, but I’m loathe to say too much about them. The Party of God has a copy of every journalist’s passport, and they’ve already hassled a number of us and threatened one.”

They threatened me too, and that was during peace time.

NOT ANTI-WAR BUT ON THE OTHER SIDE: A group that calls itself the Armed Revolutionary Fascists vandalized Jewish stores in Rome and defaced them with swastikas and pro-Hezbollah propaganda.