Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Hezbollah terrorist organization has declared that the seeming end of hostilities this morning heralds a strategic vistory for him and his guerrilla forces. He may be right. The United Nations-brokered ceasefire took effect this morning, and as the guns were stilled the question arose: what has Israel accomplished in over a month of fighting? Clearly the answer is not 'nothing'. They've dealt a severe blow to the fighting capabilities of Hezbollah. They've put Lebanon (or what's left of Lebanon) on notice that whether they were complicit in the actions of their premier terrorist organization is irrelevant. It's become clear to Saniora and his government that tolerating Hezbollah within his borders is no longer an option. In those respects, of course, Israel has succeeded in its endeavor.



But none of those were the reasons for Israel's rapid re-entry into Lebanon after evacuating in 2000. The reason was supposed to be the kidnapping of two IDF soldiers and the deaths of eight others on July 12. Those soldiers remain missing and nothing has been said about their whereabouts of late. Are they alive? Are they dead? No one seems to care. The other reason for the entry in Lebanon was to 'take out' Hezbollah. In this, as in the case of the soldiers, the offensive has clearly been a failure. Hezbollah still exists, it still has its bunkers and its Katyushas, its seats in the Lebanese government and its leader. There can be no doubt but that Hezbollah will re-arm and that this ceasefire is no more than what it sounds like--a temporary truce. Syria and Iran will continue to feed the monster and it will continue to grow.



So how important were Israel's accomplishments in the grand scheme of things? Not very. Lebanon may be on notice, and they may even take some steps to prevent Hezbollah from having the free reign it has enjoyed for so long, but as long as Hezbollah retains its part in the Lebanese government, none of this will matter. As long as the Syrian-Lebanese border remains open, there will be no one to stop the guns from getting into Hezbollah's reach.



On top of this, there has been one very negative result from this campaign--on the public opinion front. Continuing their Iraq War trend, liberals the world over have continued harping on the civilians casualties that they don't seem to realize are an unfortunate side-effect of any armed conflict. Of course, civilian casualties are always a terrible tragedy, but the fact of the matter is that in this case, Hezbollah is responsible for the majority of them. Not only do they purposefully target civilians on the Israeli side of the border, but they park their cells in heavily populated civilian areas in order to increase casualties among the Lebanese, and thereby engender severe criticism of Israel. Unfortunately, due to this Israel was left with but two options: fight Hezbollah and try to reduce collateral damage as much as possible, or not fight Hezbollah. The second was not an option. But now, global opinion has been turned against Israel, and it has yet again been branded the aggressor. It's a no win situation.



If those are the consequences of the conflict which ended today, then it is indeed possible that Nasrallah is right in calling it a victory for Hezbollah.