With friends like you, they hardly need the many enemies they will have when
Lebanon's people start pouring back in and realize they have not a damn
thing to show for their destroyed homes and infrastructure. Israel is
intact physically.
Nasrallah now has to contend with hundreds of thousands of Shiites living in
schools, tent cities, and public parks who are homeless. Hezbollah will be
going all right, but not in the way you envison. It will take billions to
reconstruct Lebanon. The US doesn't have it. They can't even reconstruct
Iraq or New Orleans let alone most of their inner cities. To lob missles
now, Hezbollahwill have to fight European forces who Iran doesn't dare to
piss off because they are a life line for them both legit goods and in
illicit arms sales. Attention is now going to focus back on Iran's giving
the UN and the US the finger over nukes and sanctions are going to tighten a
noose on Iran. Iran ordered Hezbollah into action and they jumped; now they
won't be able to.
You will be severely disappointed. The elation at the UN this afternoon is
bizarrely naive. There are no details on disarming Hezbollah and of course
they will be disarmed. Israel has had the gloves on because they could have
"shock and awed them to dust" without the FIASCO caused where IRAN has won
over the US in Iraq. They could have destroyed every missle launcher and if
necessary they can shut Syria down and paralyze Iran. The airport bombings
were little holes in the middle of the runways, not complete destruction at
the ends so they could be repaired rapidly.
The UN personnel, Condi, Bolton, Bush are bizarrely out of touch thinking
they can broker any peace without dealing with and talking with Syria and
Iran. In fairness to Condi, she actually had one of her assistants talk to
Syria's foreign minister last week while she was holed up in Rabin suite at
the David citadel hotel in Jerusalem, Walid al Moallem in Damscus, the clown
who yammers delusionally on TV but it was useless. He was deemed not to be
even "moderately constructive."
I am happy to predict you'll get your wish, and in the short term it will be
horrendous for the Lebanese people, but it will help Hezbollah be disarmed
by Israel after all. Hezbollah will find a way to piss off Israel fast,
and there will be no backing off after that. Israel at this minute is on
the hills several miles North of the Litani river and they have a view of
every possible missle launch site to the ocean. They aren't moving until
Hezbollah is disabled by an international force. The suicide pill will be
for Hezbollah to further criple Lebanon by trying anything at this juncture
and fortunately for what you believe and I want to see happen, they will.
CH