Now that bluff has been called, the government must decide whether to compromise, or to use its weapon of last resort, the Parliament Act, which allows it to force new laws onto the statute book even without the consent of the upper house.The criminal justice system, as the government itself admits, is a mess.
Mr. Hariri has accused Hezbollah, which is supported by Syria and Iran, of using its weapons for intimidation and political leverage.
Whether that "something more" that would justify that greater sacrifice meant evidence that Iraq was on the verge of using its weapons, or the prospect of establishing Iraq as an outpost of democracy, or a smoking gun tying Iraq to Sept. 11, he did not specify.
It said Damascus had proved itself "incapable of using its weapons systems proportionately or discriminately" and had fired lethal Scud missiles against its own cities, such as Aleppo.
Meanwhile Iran has already hinted that if push came to shove, it would not be shy of using its own weapons: chiefly its oil and gas, but it also has a growing navy of its own.
The Pentagon has acknowledged using its storehouse of new digital weapons to attack Islamic State communications networks, the first time that the US military has acknowledged doing so during an active war.
QE2 in effect means that the US has declared economic war, using the dollar as its weapon of mass destruction.
On the heels of new reports of growing desperation in Zimbabwe, Human Rights Watch charged Friday that the nation's rulers were using its limited food supplies as a weapon of political control.
Will Britain's ambiguity about the exact circumstances in which it might use its nuclear weapons lead to a lowering of the nuclear threshold?
The threat of a nuclear-armed state to use its nuclear weapons in defense of vital interests... is almost inherently credible.
