The endgoal is a working democracy, remember? A bloodbath that creates thousands of martyrs really won't persuade the rest that clearly they were wrong about Islam and they should become secular instead. Apart from which, improving the Egyptian economy will require breaking the corrupt strangehold of the armed forces on many sectors, yet another reason why the army's new power grab was not a good thing for Egypt (I can understand the stance that it was the lesser of two evils, though I don't think I agree, but it certainly was a long way from good).

We all agree about the endgoal, or near enough - a democratic Egypt that respects minority rights and has a less corrupt, robust economy that can provide work for the young unemployed masses. Turkey on the Nile, essentially - of course Turkey isn't perfect, but if Egypt can get where Turkey is now within a decade or two, it would be an impressive achievement. I doubt anyone has an infallible strategy to reach that goal, I certainly don't claim to have one, but what they're doing now is clearly not the solution. Even if you think the coup really was necessary, things should have been handled better after that. Why is Morsi still locked in some secret prison? He should have been released weeks ago, and if they felt that that's too dangerous (though I don't see that - he would've been inclined to make a lot of noise just as the MB is doing without him now, sure, but this kind of escalation would not have been in his interest, and one of the major justifications for it wouldn't have been there), then fine, exile him, like Shinawatra. And then those other provocations, and the live rounds in cases where they really weren't necessary. The army seems to think like you, that if they kill enough of the most vocal ones, the rest will somehow change their mind. Considering how the MB has been using their martyrized icon Qutb for half a century, you would think they'd know better.

Ah, in that sense. That sounds more plausible, yes, but so far it seems like the anti-Hezbollah violence in Lebanon is coming from the Syrian rebels, rather than from the Lebanese themselves. I think both Hezbollah and their opponents in Lebanon (or the leaders of their opponents, anyway) realize quite well that they have every interest in keeping the Syrian conflict out of Lebanon. For now, at least - who knows how things will turn out in the longer term.

Iraqi Kurdistan breaking away is plausible enough, agreed, and then they might as well incorporate the Kurdish part of Syria, although that will make Turkey extremely nervous for understandable reasons. I could see a break-up between the Iraqi Shi'ites and Sunnites as well, but I don't really see Iraq and Syria (let alone Lebanon) flowing into each other like that. For one thing, the Syrian "Shi'ites" are Alawites, who don't have that much in common with the Iraqi or Iranian Ithna'ashariyya, and I'm not sure why the Iraqi Sunnis would want to join up with their Syrian brethren, either. Sure, those Alawites get military support from Iran and Hezbollah, but then Hamas gets military support from Iran and Hezbollah, and they're Sunnites. There's a rather big difference between offering military support to a country or a population group for politico-religious reasons, and wanting to enter into a union with them.