Isreal down to earth, and embarrassed.

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

To failure's credit

Haaretz

By Gideon Levy

levy@haaretz.co.il

 

Jerusalem -- The bad (and predictable) news: Israel is going to come out of this war with the lower hand. The good (and surprising) news: This ringing failure could spell good tidings. If Israel had won the battles in an easy, sweeping victory of the kind Israelis prayed so much for, it would have caused enormous damage to Israel's security policies. Another slam-bam win would have brought disaster upon us. Drugged with power, drunk with victory, we would have been tempted to implement our success in other arenas. Dangerous fire would have threatened the entire region and nobody knows what might have resulted.

 

On the other hand, the failure in this little war might teach us an important lesson for the future, and maybe influence us to change our ways and language, the language we speak to our neighbors with violence and force. The axiom that "Israel cannot allow itself a defeat on the battlefield" has already been exposed as a nonsensical cliche: Failure might not only help Israel greatly but, as a bonus, it might teach the Americans the important lesson that there is no point in pushing Israel into military adventures.

 

Since 1948's war, Israel has only achieved one sweeping military victory on its own, in the Six-Day War. There is no way of imagining an easier and sweeter victory. Israel's "deterrent capability" was restored - and in a big way - in a manner that was supposed to guarantee its security for many years. And what happened? Only six years went by and the most difficult war in Israeli history, the Yom Kippur War, took place. Hardly deterrence. On the contrary, the defeat in 1967 only pushed the Arab armies to try to restore their lost honor and they managed to do so in a very short time. Against an arrogant, complacent Israel enjoying the rotten fruits of that dizzying victory, the Syrian and Egyptian armies chalked up considerable achievements, and Israel understood the limits of its power. Maybe now, this war will also bring us back down to reality, where military force is only military force, and cannot guarantee everything. After all, we are constantly scoring "victories" and "achievements" against the Palestinians. And what comes of them? Deterrence? Have the Palestinians given up their dreams to be free people in their own country?

 

The IDF's failure against Hezbollah is not a fateful defeat. Israel killed and absorbed casualties, but its existence or any part of its territory were not endangered for a moment. Our favorite phrase, "an existential war" is nothing more than another expression of the ridiculous pathos of this war, which from the start was a cursed war of choice.

 

Hezbollah did not capture territory from Israel and its defeat is tolerable even though it could have easily been avoided if we had not undertaken our foolish Lebanese adventure. It is not difficult to imagine what would have happened if Hezbollah had been defeated within a few days from the air, as promised from the start by the bragging of the heads of the IDF. The success would have made us insane. The U.S. would have pushed us into a military clash with Syria and, drunk with victory, we might have been tempted. Iran might have been next. At the same time we would have dealt with the Palestinians: What went so easily in Lebanon, we would have been convinced, would be easily implemented from Jenin to Rafah. The result would have been an attempt to solve the Palestinian problem at its root by pounding, erasing, bombing and shelling.

 

Maybe all that won't happen now because we have discovered first-hand that the IDF's power is much more limited than we thought and were told. Our deterrent capacity might now work in the opposite direction. Israel, hopefully, will think twice before going into another dangerous military adventure. That is comforting news. On the other hand, it is true that there is the danger the IDF will want to restore its lost honor on the backs of the helpless Palestinians. It didn't work in Bint Jbail, so we'll show them in Nablus.

 

However, if we internalize the concept whereby what does not work by force will not work with more force, this war could bring us to the negotiating table. Seared by failure, maybe the IDF will be less enthusiastic to rush into battle. It is possible the political echelon will now understand that the response to the dangers facing Israel is not to be found in using more and more force; that the real response to the legitimate and just demands of the Palestinians is not another dozen Operation Defensive Shields, but in respecting their rights; that the real response to the Syrian threat is returning the Golan to its rightful owners, without delay; and that the response to the Iranian danger is dulling the hatred toward us in the Arab and Muslim world.

 

If indeed the war ends as it is ending, maybe more Israelis will ask themselves what we are killing and being killed for, what did we pound and get pounded for, and maybe they will understand that it was once again all for naught. Maybe the achievement of this war will be that the failure will be seared deeply into the consciousness, and Israel will take a new route, less violent and less bullying, because of the failure. In 1967, Ephraim Kishon wrote, "sorry we won." This time it is almost possible to say, it's good we did not win.

 

Read comments from common jews

[me]

heehheheheee..........how we like to see them fall. (I mean the bully's of the world)

 

This is my favorite comment

 

"I think Mr. Levy is wrong on one count: in a way this was an existential war. It showed that the existence of Greater Israel, or Israel the Colonizer is not feasible.

Once Israel eats some humble pie, its political class might even see the necessity to make peace on *fair* terms, unlike before.

Hello Israel, welcome back to the rank of non-superpowers!"

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

Cleric turned ragtag Hezbollah into potent force

Christian Science Monitor

August 13, 2006

BY SCOTT PETERSON

 

BEIRUT, LEBANON -- Even Israel's most legendary military general -- a veteran of every war of Israel but this one -- is believed to have found Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah a worthy enemy.

 

Such grudging respect is no surprise to Lebanese. They have watched Nasrallah transform the Shiite militia into the only Arab force credited in the Arab world with defeating Israel on the battlefield -- forcing the end of an 18-year Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.

 

But they have also seen the charismatic cleric spark the latest war in Lebanon. And while exacting a heavy toll on the Jewish state and its long-fostered aura of invincibility, Hezbollah also prompted a massive Israeli bombardment that has cost 10 times as many Lebanese lives as Israeli ones, and ravaged the country.

 

Calm and in control, with steady eyes and a hint of heavy burden, the thickly bearded sheikh has told rapt Lebanese that Israel could stop Hezbollah rockets, if Israel stopped killing civilians.

 

Nasrallah mocked Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his lack of military experience, in his latest television statement last Thursday, saying the Israeli leader was ''an incompetent moron,'' who did not measure up to Mr. Sharon -- whose autobiography Nasrallah has read -- or other Israeli leaders before him, except in ''committing massacres.''

 

But who is Nasrallah, a man the U.S. named a ''Specially Designated Terrorist'' in 1995 for his vitriolic opposition to the Arab-Israeli peace process?

 

And how has Nasrallah, backed by patrons Syria and Iran, created the most capable guerrilla force in the region? His black-turbaned visage still festoons the rubble of Hezbollah strongholds in suburbs of Beirut and south Lebanon, where the destruction has, so far, boosted his popularity.

 

''The reason behind our strength these past years, is that we do more than we speak,'' Nasrallah said in 2000, during a rare interview in Beirut offices that last month were destroyed by Israeli planes.

 

He usually calls Israel "the Zionist entity," maintaining that all Jewish immigrants should return to their countries of origin and that there should be one Palestine with equality for Muslims, Jews and Christians, according to The New York Times.

 

With his movement shrouded in secrecy, protected by a tight ring of loyalists, Nasrallah has avoided the fate of his predecessor, who was assassinated with his family by Israeli helicopter gunships in 1992.

 

Adding to his guerrilla credentials, Nasrallah is reported to have been wounded during fighting against Israeli troops in the 1980s.

 

But it was the 1997 death of his son, Hadi, while fighting in southern Lebanon, that did most. ''That was the first event that catapulted Nasrallah's personality into the hearts and minds of so many Lebanese, including Christians and Sunnis, many of whom cried when he refused to negotiate with the Israelis to get his son's body back,'' says Nicholas Noe, a scholar of Hezbollah and editor of Mideastwire.com. ''That brought half the country to tears.''

 

But more tears have come, in the wake of Hezbollah's cross-border raid on July 12, which netted two Israeli soldiers. The aim was to trade them for three Lebanese prisoners -- a decades-long practice in the Mideast -- but it came just two weeks after Hamas militants abducted an Israeli soldier.

 

Hezbollah officials have admitted surprise at the ferocity of the Israeli response.

 

''Anytime Hezbollah launched an operation, they always had a checklist: What does it mean for Hezbollah? For Shiites? For Lebanon? For Syria and Iran?'' asks Timur Goksel, a 24-year veteran adviser of UN forces in south Lebanon.

 

"Based on that criterion, as a result people were uprooted, houses were damaged, people got killed, and people now live in miserable conditions."

 

''Hezbollah actually hurt the interests of its own people, which is very unusual.''

[Tahliil]

I am not, have never been a pro-voilent individual in my life but that first article makes a lot of sense to me. Sometimes a reality check is needed in each and every relationship. A true understanding of what's the limit of our capabilities so that, as the author suggests, one may get saved from the current, in other day, from a future and a hasty mistake. Good for the Israelis for voicing their opinions like that.

[Suldaanka]

Bloodied, the Israeli soldiers retold their story.

 

---

 

Hezbollah proves tough foe for Israeli army

 

By Joel Greenberg

Tribune foreign correspondent

Published August 14, 2006

 

HAIFA, Israel -- Leading a column of soldiers in the early-morning darkness in the village of Markabeh in southern Lebanon, Lt. Yonatan Lehrer and his point squad walked into a Hezbollah firestorm.

 

Gunfire, anti-tank rockets and grenades ripped into the Israeli troops. Two soldiers flanking Lehrer were killed, and an army doctor who rushed to treat the wounded died when a grenade exploded in his face.

 

Blasts sent shrapnel tearing through Lehrer's cheek, mangled one of his hands and blew two fingers off the other.

 

As the casualties were moved back for treatment, Hezbollah guerrillas gave chase, hurling grenades and firing at the soldiers as they evacuated the dead and wounded.

 

"They ambushed us," Lehrer, 22, said, recounting the Aug. 4 incident from a hospital bed in a room decked with banners of his Golani Brigade and pictures of his fallen comrades. "It was the first time I encountered such intensity of combat, face to face."

 

After more than a month of fighting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the Israeli army is emerging bloodied from a war with an adversary that put up tougher resistance than expected and could continue to harry the Israelis until their expected replacement by Lebanese troops and a beefed-up UN force.

 

In ground fighting and in rocket attacks on Israeli towns and cities, Hezbollah demonstrated an ability to fight back and inflict casualties despite punishing Israeli artillery and air assaults, naval shelling and ground assaults that the army says have killed more than 500 guerrillas.

 

In interviews at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, wounded Israeli soldiers described a well-equipped and highly motivated enemy that often stood its ground and fought to the death rather than retreat in the face of the Israeli onslaught.

 

Instead of confronting the Israelis head-on, the Hezbollah fighters used guerrilla tactics, moving in small groups and trying to surprise the Israeli troops with ambushes from houses and scrub-covered hills.

 

"They know the terrain very well, they have up-to-date equipment, including night-vision gear, and they are true believers in what they are doing," said Staff Sgt. Gur Nedzvetsky, 21, a paratrooper wounded in the village of Ayta al-Shaab. "The most important thing is to be prepared emotionally for battle, and in that they are very strong."

 

Hezbollah's most effective weapon in the ground fighting was an array of Russian-made anti-tank missiles, which the Israelis say were supplied by Syria and Iran. The missiles proved effective in penetrating the armor of Israel's Merkava tanks and smashing through houses in which Israeli troops took up positions.

 

"We are talking about a variety of rockets and missiles that are state-of-the-art," said Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, who until May was head of the research division in Israeli military intelligence. "They use the anti-tank weapons both as an artillery piece and as an anti-tank missile."

 

The missiles have a tandem warhead that first detonates the Israeli tanks' explosive armor plates that are designed to neutralize incoming missiles, then blasts into the tank.

 

The guerrillas are armed with RPG-29 rockets and the Metis-M anti-tank missile system supplied to Syria by Russia, as well as an Iranian-made version of the Russian Konkurs anti-tank missile, Kuperwasser said.

 

According to Israeli army accounts from Lebanon, Hezbollah fighters also have used the laser-guided Russian Kornet anti-tank missile, with a range of up to 3 miles.

 

"This is not a militia. This is a well-equipped infantry division using guerrilla tactics but operating according to a military doctrine taught by the Iranians," Kuperwasser said.

 

He added that Israel was not surprised by the stockpile of weapons held by Hezbollah because it had been tracking the accumulation of rockets and missiles across the border.

 

"We knew very well what Hezbollah had, and we more or less knew the quantity," he said. "We knew that fighting against them was going to cause casualties."

 

But it is unclear whether ordinary Israelis were prepared for how high that price would be: at least 113 soldiers dead so far, and 39 civilians killed by Hezbollah rockets fired into northern Israel. A recent public opinion poll indicated that most Israelis do not believe their army has won the war with Hezbollah, and there has been mounting criticism in the news media of the way the war was waged.

 

There also have been questions about the performance of the army, which for the last six years has been engaged in putting down a Palestinian uprising and fighting militants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. That has been a very different sort of mission, sometimes resembling police work and at other times consisting of street battles with ragtag militias of the various Palestinian factions.

 

Staff Sgt. Ron Naveh, 21, a wounded paratrooper, said that fighting Hezbollah, with its organization and weaponry, was something else entirely.

 

"There's a huge difference," he said. "The Palestinians are untrained; they just pick up their guns and fire off bursts without aiming. Here you have trained soldiers who don't just shoot. They aim, and they hit. They're a kind of army."

 

Lehrer, the wounded lieutenant, shared that view.

 

"You can't compare this to Gaza," he said. "That's a game compared to what's going on in Lebanon."

 

----------

 

jogreenberg@tribune.com

[Sharmarkee]

Originally posted by Libaax-Sankataabte:

To failure's credit

Haaretz

By Gideon Levy

levy@haaretz.co.il

 

Jerusalem -- The bad (and predictable) news: Israel is going to come out of this war with the lower hand.

 

If that is the case thanks to the Isreali's credible newspapers,at least they are telling the truth, I don't know why anybody is buying US and BBC's politically biased storie in that regard. isn't it a waste of shekels?

[Jabhad]

What Has Happened to the Israeli Army?

 

by Uri Avnery

So what has happened to the Israeli army?

 

This question is now being raised not only around the world, but also in Israel itself. Clearly, there is a huge gap between the army's boastful arrogance, on which generations of Israelis have grown up, and the picture presented by this war.

 

Before the choir of generals utters its expected cries of being stabbed in the back – "The government has shackled our hands! The politicians did not allow the army to win! The political leadership is to blame for everything!" – it is worthwhile to examine this war from a professional military point of view.

 

(It is, perhaps, appropriate to interject at this point a personal remark. Who am I to speak about strategic matters? What am I, a general? Well – I was 16 years old when World War II broke out. I decided then to study military theory in order to be able to follow events. I read a few hundred books – from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz to Liddel-Hart and so on. Later, in the 1948 war, I saw the other side of the medal, as a soldier and squad-leader. I have written two books on the war. That does not make me a great strategist, but it does allow me to voice an informed opinion.)

 

The facts speak for themselves:

 

On the 32nd day of the war, Hezbollah is still standing and fighting. That by itself is a stunning feat: a small guerilla organization, with a few thousand fighters, is standing up to one of the strongest armies in the world and has not been broken after a month of "pulverizing." Since 1948, the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan have repeatedly been beaten in wars that were much shorter.

 

As I have already said: if a lightweight boxer is fighting a heavyweight champion and is still standing in the 12th round, the victory is his – whatever the count of points says.

 

In the test of results – the only one that counts in war – the strategic and tactical command of Hezbollah is decidedly better than that of our own army. All along, our army's strategy has been primitive, brutal, and unsophisticated.

 

Clearly, Hezbollah has prepared well for this war – while the Israeli command has prepared for a quite different war.

 

On the level of individual fighters, the Hezbollah are not inferior to our soldiers, neither in bravery nor in initiative.

 

The main guilt for the failure belongs with Gen. Dan Halutz. I say "guilt" and not merely "responsibility," which comes with the job.

 

He is living proof of the fact that an inflated ego and a brutal attitude are not enough to create a competent chief of staff. The opposite may be true.

 

Halutz gained fame (or notoriety) when he was asked what he feels when he drops a one-ton bomb on a residential quarter and answered: "a slight bang on the wing." He added that afterwards he sleeps well at night. (In the same interview, he also called me and my friends "traitors" who should be prosecuted.)

 

Now it is already clear – again, in the test of results – that Dan Halutz is the worst chief of staff in the annals of the Israeli army, a completely incompetent officer for his job.

 

Recently he has changed his blue air force uniform for the green one of the land army. Too late.

 

Halutz started this war with the bluster of an air force officer. He believed that it was possible to crush Hezbollah by aerial bombardment, supplemented by artillery shelling from land and sea. He believed that if he destroyed the towns, neighborhoods, roads, and ports of Lebanon, the Lebanese people would rise and compel their government to remove Hezbollah. For a week he killed and devastated, until it became clear to everybody that this method achieves the opposite – strengthens Hezbollah, weakens its opponents within Lebanon and throughout the Arab world, and destroys the worldwide sympathy Israel enjoyed at the beginning of the war.

 

When he reached this point, Halutz did not know what to do next. For three weeks he sent his soldiers into Lebanon on senseless and hopeless missions, gaining nothing. Even in the battles that were fought in villages right on the border, no significant victories were achieved. After the fourth week, when he was requested to submit a plan to the government, it was unbelievably primitive.

 

If the "enemy" had been a regular army, it would have been a bad plan. Just pushing the enemy back is hardly a strategy at all. But when the other side is a guerilla force, this is simply foolish. It may cause the death of many soldiers, for no practical result.

 

Now he is trying to achieve a token victory, occupying empty space as far from the border as possible, after the UN has already called for an end to the hostilities. (As in almost all previous Israeli wars, this call is being ignored, in the hope of snatching some gains at the last moment.) Behind this line, Hezbollah remains intact in their bunkers.

 

However, the chief of staff does not act in a vacuum. As commander in chief he has indeed a huge influence, but he is also merely the top of the military pyramid.

 

This war casts a dark shadow on the whole upper echelon of our army. I assume that there are some talented officers, but the general picture is of a senior officers corps that is mediocre, or worse, gray and unoriginal. Almost all the many officers who have appeared on TV are unimpressive, uninspiring professionals, experts on covering their behinds, repeating empty clichés like parrots.

 

The ex-generals, who have been crowding out everybody else in the TV and radio studios, have also mostly surprised us with their mediocrity, limited intelligence, and general ignorance. One gets the impression that they have not read books on military history, and fill the void with empty phrases.

 

More than once it has been said in this column that an army that has been acting for many years as a colonial police force against the Palestinian population – "terrorists," women, and children – and spending its time running after stone-throwing boys, cannot remain an efficient army. The test of results confirms this.

 

As after every failure of our military, the intelligence community is quick to cover its *** . Their chiefs declare that they knew everything, that they provided the troops with full and accurate information, that they are not to blame if the army did not act on it.

 

That does not sound reasonable. Judging from the reactions of the commanders in the field, they clearly were completely unaware of the defense system built by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The complex infrastructure of hidden bunkers, stocked with modern equipment and stockpiles of food and weapons, was a complete surprise for the army. It was not ready for these bunkers, including those built two or three kilometers from the border. They are reminiscent of the tunnels in Vietnam.

 

The intelligence community has also been corrupted by the long occupation of the Palestinian territories. They have gotten used to relying on the thousands of collaborators who have been recruited in the course of 39 years by torture, bribery, and extortion (junkies needing drugs, someone begging to be allowed to visit his dying mother, someone desiring a chunk from the cake of corruption, etc.). Clearly, no collaborators were found among Hezbollah, and without them intelligence is blind.

 

It is also clear that intelligence, and the army in general, was not ready for the deadly efficiency of Hezbollah's anti-tank weapons. Hard to believe, but according to official figures, more than 20 tanks were hit.

 

The Merkava ("carriage") tank is the pride of the army. Its father, Gen. Israel Tal, a victorious tank general, did not want only to build the world's most advanced tank, but also a tank that provided its crew with the best possible protection. Now it appears that an anti-tank weapon from the late 1980s that is available in large quantities can disable the tank, killing or grievously wounding the soldiers inside.

 

The common denominator of all the failures is the disdain for Arabs, a contempt that has dire consequences. It has caused total misunderstanding, a kind of blindness of Hezbollah's motives, attitudes, standing in Lebanese society, etc.

 

I am convinced that today's soldiers are in no way inferior to their predecessors. Their motivation is high, and they have shown great bravery in the evacuation of the wounded under fire. (I very much appreciate that in particular, since my own life was saved by soldiers who risked theirs to get me out under fire when I was wounded.) But the best soldiers cannot succeed when the command is incompetent.

 

History teaches that defeat can be a great blessing for an army. A victorious army rests on its laurels, it has no motive for self-criticism, it degenerates, its commanders become careless and lose the next war. (See: the Six Day War leading to the Yom Kippur War). A defeated army, on the other side, knows that it must rehabilitate itself. On one condition: that it admits defeat.

 

After this war, the chief of staff must be dismissed and the senior officer corps overhauled. For that, a minister of defense is needed who is not a marionette of the chief of staff. (But that concerns the political leadership, about whose failures and sins we shall speak another time.)

 

We, as people of peace, have a great interest in changing the military leadership. First, because it has a huge impact on the forming of policy and, as we just saw, irresponsible commanders can easily drag the government into dangerous adventures. And second, because even after achieving peace we shall need an efficient army – at least until the wolf lies down with the lamb, as the prophet Isaiah promised. (And not in the Israeli version: "No problem. One only has to bring a new lamb every day.")

 

The main lesson of the war, beyond all military analysis, lies in the five words we inscribed on our banner from the very first day: "There is no military solution!"

 

Even a strong army cannot defeat a guerilla organization, because the guerilla is a political phenomenon. Perhaps the opposite is true: the stronger the army, the better equipped with advanced technology, the smaller are its chances of winning such a confrontation. Our conflict – in the north, the center, and the south – is a political conflict, and can only be resolved by political means. The army is the instrument worst suited for that.

 

The war has proved that Hezbollah is a strong opponent, and any political solution in the north must include it. Since Syria is its strong ally, it must also be included. The settlement must be worthwhile for them too, otherwise it will not last.

 

The price is the return of the Golan Heights.

 

What is true in the north is also true in the south. The army will not defeat the Palestinians, because such a victory is altogether impossible. For the good of the army, it must be extricated from the quagmire.

 

If that now enters the consciousness of the Israeli public, something good may yet have come out of this war.

[Jabhad]

The BBC is government owned media and reports only what Blair wants it to report. And these days you cannot distinguish an American news report from that of Israel itself.

[Castro]

^ To be fair, what I've read of the Israeli press (mostly centrist or left wing, mind you) has been remarkably accurate but understandably somber. Something that cannot be said of most British and US press. Why it was just today that Bush was bestowing victory upon Israel. How ironic it is that the Israelis admit defeat yet the cowards and chicken hawks in Washington claim victory. :rolleyes:

 

Sheikh Hassan Nassrallah and Xizbullah's well-deserved victory over the world's "4th strongest" army is a truly remarkable achievement. He did not exaggerate when he said this is a "strategic and historic" triumph over Israel. I was still (pleasantly) surprised by the victory of another Sheikh Hassan, better known as Sheikh Dahir Aweys of the Union of Islamic Courts, over the wicked and well-funded warlords of Muqdishu (yet another failed US proxy ), when in week 2 and 3 of this doomed Israeli adventure, it became clear Israel was desperate for a cease-fire more than the "rag tag terrorists" of southern Lebanon. I am always delighted when the proxies of the US are defeated but even more so when the real oppressors are humbled, even humiliated.

 

Way to go Sheikh Hassan and Sheikh Hassan.

 

P.S. Other than its cowardly destruction of civilian infrastructure and the cold-blooded, nay wanton, killing of fleeing women and children, Israel has achieved absolutely nothing. Now it will reap what it has sown in south Lebanon, insha-Allah.

[xiinfaniin]

^^Couldn't agree more with you on that.

Read on this: Israel, Defeated

Round one: Lebanon, 1 – Israel, 0!

[General Duke]

It is not 1967, the Arab and Muslim world is waking up.

[Baashi]

Olmert's war, and the next one

 

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

 

When Israel answered the Hezbollah raid that captured two soldiers with air strikes on Lebanon's airport, runways, gas stations, lighthouses, bridges, buses, apartment houses and power plants, we who questioned the wisdom and morality of what Israel was doing were denounced as anti-Israel or anti-Semitic.

 

Turns out we were right. In private, even Israeli army generals were raging that Israel was fighting a ****** , losing war.

 

Ehud Olmert, who gave Chief of Staff Dan Halutz the green light to launch the shock-and-awe air campaign, cannot survive the moral, political and strategic disaster his country has suffered.

 

While the Israeli Air Force was hammering Lebanon, Hezbollah rained down 3,000 rockets on Israel and fought off pinprick raids. When the Israeli army, after a month, moved in force against the real enemy, Hezbollah, Israel had already suffered irreparable damage to its reputation as a fighting nation and a moral country.

 

As the war began, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Bahrain all condemned Hezbollah, as did the Beirut government, for inciting the war. But with Hezbollah's defiant resistance, as Israel smashed up Lebanon, the Arab street rallied to Nasrallah. Arab regimes followed.

 

The losers?

 

Lebanon, which suffered 800 dead, thousands injured and 1 million made refugees, saw its infrastructure destroyed and nation set back 20 years. If the government falls or Lebanon becomes a failed state, it will be an even greater calamity for the Lebanese, and for Israel and the Middle East. For the mightiest political and military force in Lebanon, and likely heir apparent to power slipping away from Prime Minister Siniora, is now Hezbollah and Hassan Nasrallah.

 

Says Walid Jumblatt, savage critic of Hezbollah and its Syrian alliance, "Hassan Nasrallah has won militarily and politically, and has become a new leader like Nasser."

 

Another loser is Israel, and Olmert, who seized on the border skirmish to launch his Lebanon war. Writes Ari Shavit of Ha'aretz:

 

"Chutzpah has its limits. You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeats and remain in power. You cannot bury 120 Israelis in cemeteries, keep a million Israelis in shelters for a month, wear down deterrent power, bring the next war very close and then say, oops, I made a mistake."

 

Olmert and Halutz are history. The Kadima Party regime will fall. Left and right are already tearing at its flanks.

 

What does this mean? The Sharon-Olmert policy of unilateral withdrawal from the territories is dead. The Hamas-led Palestinian authority, the creation of the freest and fairest elections ever held in Palestine, is on a death watch, after Israel's starvation blockade and ravaging of the Gaza Strip, which has left 150 Palestinians dead.

 

A new Israeli regime will not withdraw from any more land, nor shut down any more settlements, nor vacate any part of Jerusalem, nor negotiate with a Palestinian Authority led by Hamas, or by a PLO that is unable to disarm Hamas. We are at dead end, as George W. Bush will not push the Israelis to do anything, nor will Congress.

 

America is another loser.

 

The United States knew in advance Israel planned to attack and, if possible, destroy Hezbollah. And America approved.

 

But when Olmert launched an air war on Lebanon, instead, Bush cheered him on, refused to rein in attacks on civilian targets, sent smart bombs and used U.S. influence at the United Nations to block an early ceasefire. Bush-Cheney are thus morally and politically culpable for what was done to Lebanon and the democratic government there that was born of a "Cedar Revolution" George Bush himself had championed.

 

Congress poodled alone with Bush, so Bush will not be called to account, as he would be were any other nation but Israel involved. From Morocco to the Gulf, there is probably not a country today that would welcome Bush, or where he would be safe on a state visit.

 

Where does this leave us? With Israel's failure to achieve its strategic objectives in Lebanon and America having failed to attain its strategic objectives in Iraq, Nasrallah emerges triumphant, and Syria and Iran emerge unscathed and gloating.

 

What comes next? That is obvious.

 

With our War Party discredited by the failed policies it cheered on in Lebanon and Iraq, there will come a clamor that Bush must "go to the source" of all our difficultly -- Iran. Only thus can the War Party redeem itself for having pushed us and Israel into two unnecessary and ruinous wars. And the drumbeat for war on Iran has already begun.

 

"(T)he dangers continue to mount abroad," wails The Weekly Standard in its lead editorial. "How Bush deals with Ahmadinejad's terror-supporting and nuclear-weapons pursuing Iran will be the test" of his administration. Yes, the supreme test.

 

Bush is on notice from the neocons and War Party that have all but destroyed his presidency: Either you take down Iran, Mr. Bush, or you are a failed president.

 

If the president is still listening to these people, Lord help the Republic.

 

Copyright © 2006 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

[Che -Guevara]

well said Castro.

 

Even Syria is publically mocking the States by declaring " The New Middle East". The defeatist mentality is slowly but surely dying away. We will wait and see the long term implications of this last battle.

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