Questioning Hizbullah's Victory

I've been saying for quite some time that Hizbullah would declare itself the victor in its fight with Israel regardless of how much of Lebanon was destroyed, let alone how many Hizbullah were killed in the fighting. Even if Nasrallah were last terrorist standing, he'd declare Hizbullah had beaten Israel. That, despite the fact that Israel soundly beat Hizbullah and disrupted the terrorist group's infrastructure, capabilities, and standing in Lebanon.

Well, it seems that folks are taking a closer look at what happened and instead of listening to Nasrallah and HizbullahTV, they're looking at the facts on the ground in Lebanon and finding quite a different picture. Amir Taheri finds that Hizbullah lost badly, even among many Shi'ites because they had no input into fighting a conflict against Israel when there was no reason to do so. If one wants to call this a victory for Hizbullah, it must be a Pyrrhic one.

Michael Young comes to a similar conclusion.

So perhaps a victory it is, but in that case Hezbollah's victory is no different than most other Arab victories in recent decades: the "victory" of October 1973, where Egypt and Syria managed to cross into Israeli-held land, their land, only to be later saved from a thrashing by timely United Nations intervention; the "victory" of 1982, where Palestinian groups were ultimately expelled from West Beirut, but were proud to have stayed in the fight for three months; the Iraqi "victory" of 1991, where Saddam Hussein brought disaster on his country but still held on to power. Now we have the Hezbollah "victory" of 2006: the Israelis bumbled and blundered, but still managed to create a million refugees, to kill over 1,000 people, and to kick Lebanon's economy back several years. One dreads to imaine what Hezbollah would recognize as a military loss.

Hizbullah lost, but in the Middle East, perceptions count as much as the facts. That's why the propaganda war was so prominent - and why the discovery of faked photos, exaggerated and staged photo-ops, along with Hizbullah intimidation of journalists affected how the world saw the fighting progress.

UPDATE:
I'm inclined to support the conclusions of this analysis of the Hizbullah-Israel war, which is that the West lost because it showed a lack of spine against the Islamists. The Islamists know that they can simply outlast the West and could eventually win because the West doesn't have the willpower to stay in the fight to win decisively.

The problem lies not just in the fact that the free world looked irresolute; the greater problem is that the free world was irresolute. The Olmert government was pathetic, its leader obsessed with bodybags like a latter day LBJ. The Israeli media quickly proclaimed quagmire – the Olmert government quaked. Also providing eerie echoes of LBJ, the unqualified Olmert micro-managed the war, foregoing the advice of his hardened and more worthy military men who wanted to really fight.

The rest of the civilized world hardly came off any better. The second the fur began flying, the Western powers began screaming for a ceasefire, giving no thought to whether such a thing would be in its long term or even short term interests. The important thing was that the carnage be driven from its TV screens immediately.

The role of the United States in all of this remains opaque. On the one hand, we may have been doing everything possible to give the IDF the time it needed to do what needed to be done. On the other hand, Condoleezza Rice made a convincing member of the ceasefire chorus.

Whatever the case, “opaque” isn’t good enough. At every opportunity, we must deliver to our enemy a clear message – Jihad is a dead end. If we want to win hearts and minds, keep demonstrating that message and eventually the job will get done.

So, at best, the Israel-Hezbollah war was a missed opportunity. More likely, the war gave our malefactors the impression that we lack sufficient backbone, and can be outlasted and outfought.

Whatever tactical setbacks Hezbollah and Iran suffered, they weren’t worth the emboldening effect that the war had on them and their fellow travelers.

This is the same situation that presented itself to Osama Bin Laden in the late 1990s. After seeing how the US failed to take decisive action against his group after a number of terrorist operations hit US interests around the world, he ratcheted up his attacks and set in motion the 9/11 terror operation. The Islamists could once again draw the same conclusions, with the same gruesome outcome in death and destruction of civilians at the hands of jihadis.