Many of the political observers here in Finland have cast the war in Lebanon as being either solely between the Israelis and the Hezbollah (exm: retired general Gustav Hägglund), or a proxy war between the US and Iran. I see it as being both, but with an extra emphasis on the latter. No doubt that the Hezbollah showed an impressive staying power during the entire 33 day war, proving many military analysts (a highly trained fighting machine) to have been correct after all.
Israel on the other hand, is currently undergoing a period of “self analysis” over just what went wrong, and what can be done to fix it. The “knee-jerk” reaction to point fingers is becoming too hard to resist, as some politicians position themselves to reap politically an unexpected dividend from voter dissatisfaction with the present government’s handling of the current crisis.
I believe we have been all to hasty with our criticism over the outcome of the war, and things are not that dire as they seem to be, even if a “less than expected” UNIFIL force is put into place in southern Lebanon. Israel has in fact removed the threat of long range missiles that will not be easily replaced, and due to the unexpected “full scale” reaction by the IDF, Hezbollah will find it hard to claim “wide support” from the general population that only saw one sector of it waging war on Israel…Hezbollah. This was a war that they carried out on behalf of Iran, and they alone (along with some Iranian Guards) were left to wage it, regardless of how much they would be reduced in size.
JPost’s Saul Singer, wrote an informative article that spells out some very uncomfortable truths, not just for Israel, but for the whole West in general. That this is a showdown of wills between a freedom loving West, and a totalitarian Mullocracy, that intends to shape the Middle-East in its own image. Many have disparaged the current US administration’s ME policies, as being hegemonistic, but what would the world rather have, a ME destabilized, with fanatical Islam running amok under a Shii’a nuclear umbrella, or a ME that sees militant Islam being denied a chance to promote its utopian agenda? A line is being drawn in the sand, and the West needs to “muster up” its collective courage if they plan to step over it, in order to deter any future aggression. Read more here. KGS
“WINNING THE peace begins with shaping the lessons of the war. The first lesson: Iran is fighting a comprehensive war against the West, including Israel. The West’s response must be equally comprehensive.” “Equally, the war is not about Israel. It is about whether the West will lift a finger to defend itself. This war is not about Hizbullah, Hamas, or even al-Qaida: it’s about Iran. It is about whether the many peace-loving states of the world will confront and defeat a single vulnerable but aggressive state that cannot be deterred because its leaders are happy to sacrifice millions of their own people as “martyrs” to fulfill their own apocalyptic ideology. “
