Hezbollah is taking charge of reconstruction in south Lebanon, while the world is still dithering over the makeup of a peacekeeping force.

After a month of war, large swaths of the country are in ruins. Hundreds of thousands of people are without homes. Many Lebanese are furiously blaming the United States as well as Israel for their suffering. Whatever anger they may also harbor toward Hezbollah for provoking the war is being more than neutralized by the militia’s swift on-the-scene response and the large piles of cash it is handing out, courtesy of Iran.

No one should be surprised that there would be a political as well as military vacuum in Lebanon once the fighting stopped. The Lebanese government is too weak, and too intimidated by Hezbollah, to even try to fill it on its own.

The Bush administration provided $30 million in relief aid in the midst of the war, but got little credit while it was doing nothing to stop Israel’s bombing. Late last week Washington committed another $20 million, and officials say they’ll pledge a lot more at a conference at the end of this month.

Promises, even the best-intentioned, can’t compete with the visible aid Hezbollah is already delivering, in some cases house to house. Washington’s pledges must be quickly translated into tangible on-the-ground help or Hezbollah will clinch the battle for Lebanese hearts and minds even before the peacekeepers arrive. The American aid bureaucracy proved that it can move quickly after the Asian tsunami of 2004. The same sense of urgency needs to be brought to bear now.

It may turn out that the most that can be hoped for is a slow political marginalization of Hezbollah. Even that will take all the outside aid, technical support and spine-stiffening for Lebanon’s government that the international community can provide. The race has begun, and Hezbollah is already ahead.