Brian David Smith wrote:

Hezbollah wins war

Hezbollah hasn't won, but neither has Israel.

Israel promised to drive Hezbollah from the Lebanon, capture its leader
and rescue their kidnapped citizens.

aims. Instead, Hezbollah has become more entrenched in southern Lebanon
and has won widespread, albeit grudging, support from the Lebanese.

On the other hand, Hezbollah have promised to defeat Israel, and have
expended a vast stockpile of missiles to that end, achieving little. As
long as UN troops are present they will no longer control their region,
although they will use the 'peace' afforded by the ceasefire to rearm,
and will start attacking Israel again when the UN have left.

Israel made a big mistake attacking areas of Lebanon outside Hezbollah
control. They may now be forced to make a humiliating 'like for like'
swap of prisoners, which will confer on Hezbollah a moral equivalence
with Israel that, as a terrorist militia, it cannot deserve.

Meanwhile the reported horrors of life under Hezbollah rule in Lebanon
- the mistreatment of women, the summary executions, the total denial
of freedoms - have been ignored. That these are consistently downplayed
by the so-called 'left' in Europe is a scandal.

In the long term however this situation may be advantageous for Israel.
The Christian, Sunni Muslim and Druze populations that make up four
fifths of Lebanon's population will not in the end be happy that the
Shia and their Iran and Syria-backed militia have such power in their
land; the Sunni majority Arab states won't like it much either,
especially Saudi Arabia. We may be one step nearer outright war between
Sunni and Shia Muslims in the middle east, which increasingly seems the
best way to solve the 'Islam problem'.

The big winners in this war have been fascist Iran and its Arab puppets
in Syria. The best solution for Israel I think would be to join NATO