Ehud Olmert’s terrorist outreach campaign (er, diplomatic offensive) causes him to say extremely confusing things, like the following:

“In the Second Lebanon War we had much greater means and capabilities which we avoided using since we fought against a terror organization and not a country. If Lebanon turns in to a Hizbullah state, we will no longer place any limitations on ourselves,” Olmert said during a visit to the Home Front Command headquarters in Ramle.

Such words might have a very limited deterrent effect on Hezbollah, which must consider a greater post-war Lebanese backlash against the domestic destruction wrought by its “resistance.” But that’s probably not what Olmert was thinking; if such nuance found its way into his thinking — so far as I can tell, the only thing that does occupy his mind is political calculation — he wouldn’t have agreed to hand over live members of Hezbollah to Lebanon last month, turning Hassan Nasrallah overnight from pariah to celebrity.

So instead we get the characteristic Olmert schizophrenia, in which he pledges that Israel will hold all of Lebanon responsible for Hezbollah, which is armed, funded, and sustained via Syria . . . which is currently Olmert’s “peace partner.” This would be like President Bush entering peace talks with Iran and then saying that he was going to hold all of Baghdad responsible for the existence of Moqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi army.