Israeli Debacle

Israel had to go in hard and fast, and get the job done before "international opinion" could be mobilized to destroy their offensive. They had ample reason under international law to do that. But Israel didn't do that, allowing the media to follow its inclinations and focus coverage on minute-by-minute casualty counts of innocents. Once that happens, the media airheads have eyes and ears for nothing else, and any coverage of the strategic necessity, purpose, and course of the war disappears, in favor of one tear-jerking human interest story after another. Al-Jazeera needs no camera crews to spin the story for the Arab world, our media does their work for them, better than they could do themselves.

Game, set, match.

Hezbollah, et al., have learned a big lesson here. Do what it takes (charitable works!) to insinuate yourself among the civilian population, and then launch attacks from behind that shield, as well as the verbal shield of "proportionality." The obvious tactic is to draw enemy fire onto schools, mosques, hospitals, day-care centers, UN posts, etc. All moral opprobrium then falls on the other side, and the moral (!) balance falls your way. Theater of the absurd. The result will be some kind of cease fire that largely legitimizes a terrorist organization and secures their right to exist -- unlike Israel's. Kofi Annan will round up an "international force" to provide security for Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. All it cost Hezbollah was a few fighters and, temporarily, a small portion of their missile arsenal. Songs will be sung about this around jihadist campfires for generations; the morale boost for them is probably impossible to overestimate.

The IDF did not lose this war, the Israeli political leadership did. It is too late for a do-over. The loss of Sharon was huge. The Olmert government is a disaster.

I would dearly love to be wrong about all of this.