The July-August 2006 conflagration between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite Islamist Hezbollah movement defies the common presumption that the Arab-Israeli conflict is inherently zero sum - that Israel's loss is always a commensurate gain for its adversaries, and vice versa. As UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown remarked during the fourth week of fighting, this was an "odd war" in which "both sides think they're winning."[1]

In fact, both sides achieved significant gains that may ultimately outweigh their losses and shift the dynamics of the conflict into a stable equilibrium. Israel made concrete strategic and diplomatic gains in its decades-long quest to pacify its northern border, while failing spectacularly to achieve rather fanciful declared objectives and tarnishing its image of military invincibility (a disastrous combination in Israeli politics, but hardly a crushing national setback). Hezbollah won a resounding political victory at home, at the expense of constrained freedom of action to fight Israelis abroad, a state-sanctioned indulgence that most Lebanese Shiites would just as soon the group give up (while remaining armed).

The war was less favorable to non-participants. The Israeli onslaught appears to have eroded public confidence in Lebanon's ruling March 14 coalition by demonstrating that its most attractive perceived virtue (American backing) was largely a mirage and exposing the political paralysis and corruption of the state. The Bush administration gained some strategic leverage over Iran, but its unswerving support for the Israeli campaign fueled a spike in anti-American sentiments in Lebanon and the region, while Arab governments that tacitly followed its lead suffered a major public relations setback. While Iran and Syria loudly rejoiced at seeing their Lebanese ally take to the battlefield against Israel, the political payoffs accrue mainly to Hezbollah alone and will militate against future outside efforts to incite anti-Israeli violence from Lebanese soil.

Background

Following the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah continued to launch sporadic cross-border raids against Israeli forces (under the pretext of liberating the disputed Shebaa Farms enclave and freeing a handful of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails); increased the scope of its financial, logistical, and material support for Palestinian terrorist groups; and stockpiled a massive arsenal of over 12,000 rockets capable of hitting northern Israel, including several hundred capable of hitting Haifa and a few dozen capable of hitting Tel Aviv. Hezbollah's low-level campaign against Israel was carefully crafted to maximize its domestic political returns (vis-à-vis Syria) and support Iranian strategic objectives, while falling within the perceived limits of Israeli tolerance.

While cross border violence by citizens of a neighboring country without any interference from their government is a state of affairs that even the most dovish Israelis agree shouldn't be tolerated, the Israeli government declined to respond forcefully to Hezbollah provocations for nearly six years. Fierce Israeli reprisals for cross-border attacks risked provoking Hezbollah into raining rockets on northern Israel, which would push any Israeli government ineluctably into a full-scale war in Lebanon. In view of Israel's preoccupation with the second Palestinian intifada, American desire for stability in Syrian-occupied Lebanon, and continued hopes that Syrian President Bashar Assad would come to the peace table, the day of reckoning was continually put off.

Hezbollah repeatedly stated that that its rockets were intended only to deter Israeli air strikes, and this may well be true - the rockets gave it the freedom to wage low-level, politically lucrative "resistance" to Israel without risk of devastating retaliation. However, in building an arsenal powerful enough to deter Israel (and constructing a massive network of fortified bunkers and tunnels to protect it) Hezbollah acquired a devastating first-strike capability (i.e. firing all of the rockets as quickly as possible before Israeli civilians have taken to air raid shelters).

The conclusion of Israeli and American officials that Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah was prepared to launch a first strike in response to a military campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities may have been erroneous (Hezbollah has never displayed any willingness to sacrifice its pursuit of political hegemony among Shiite Lebanese to advance Iranian interests). However, it was entirely consistent with Hezbollah's observable deployments, and with its extensive efforts to gather intelligence on Israeli industrial sites and other strategic targets which would be viable only in a carefully calibrated all-out assault (as opposed to the frenetic "shoot and scoot" tactics in an ongoing conflict).

Israel continued to tolerate the attacks throughout 2005 because of its pullout from Gaza, pressure from the Bush administration (which was anxious to bolster the Hariri-Jumblatt coalition), and looming Israeli elections (which rendered any escalation in Lebanon subject to suspicions of diversionary political motives).[2] This tepid reprisal policy not only encouraged Hezbollah to continue the raids, but also bolstered Nasrallah's ability to win the acquiescence of the Lebanese political establishment after the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. The withdrawal left the most political powerful faction of the country's governing elite (led by the Hariri family and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, with support from traditional Christian political and religious leaders) unable to secure victory in parliamentary elections or form a stable government without Hezbollah's endorsement. In return for it, the Hariri-Jumblatt coalition agreed (much as it did during the occupation) not to obstruct Hezbollah operations against Israel or interfere with the flow of Iranian arms shipments to the militia.

The tidal wave of public outrage in Israel following Hezbollah's July 12 abduction of two Israeli soldiers gave Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert a blank check to wage a full-scale war in Lebanon. Although the declared goals of the Israeli campaign evolved during the fighting, it was geared toward the pursuit of distinct military, strategic, diplomatic, and political objectives. The military objective was simply to degrade Hezbollah's operational capacity as much as possible, while minimizing human and economic costs; the strategic objective was to re-establish Israeli deterrence (both of Hezbollah and its enemies in general); the diplomatic objective was to enable the Americans to drum up international support for a multinational force explicitly authorized to obstruct Hezbollah attacks; and the political objective was to provide a sufficient pretext for the March 14 coalition to support a robust international deployment aimed at containing (and eventually disarming) Hezbollah.

The apparent genius of the plan was that Israel's drive to de-fang Hezbollah converged neatly with American and European interests in weakening Iranian strategic power, the March 14 coalition's aspiration to govern Lebanon as it sees fit, and Saudi Arabia's ambition to downsize the Arab world's most influential Shiite political force.

The Military Outcome

Israel's primary military objective was to degrade Hezbollah's ability to launch cross-border air and ground attacks, within whatever window of opportunity allowed for by Olmert's diplomatic campaign. This relegation of military objectives behind diplomatic and political goals (evident in Israel's reluctance to launch a major ground offensive until the last few days of the war) has been roundly criticized in Israel, but it was based on the recognition that no military outcome would be decisive unless Hezbollah faced an effective arms embargo or domestic constraints in refitting its paramilitary apparatus after the war. In addition to being diplomatically counterproductive, a sustained ground war against man-for-man the powerful guerrilla force in the world (with elite commandos equal or better than their Israeli counterparts in many kinds of tactics) would have been very costly. IDF incursions into Hezbollah-controlled territory have often been disastrous in the past (in 1997, 12 Israeli commandos died in a single raid).

In view of the limited resources committed to the campaign, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief-of-Staff Gen. Dan Halutz's claim that Israel won "a victory on points, not a knockout" is a valid analogy up to a point.[3] Hezbollah appears to have lost a substantially greater share of its military assets and infrastructure than Israel. The Israeli military claims to have killed over 500 Hezbollah's fighters (against its own losses of 118 servicemen) and eliminated most of the group's medium and long-range rockets. However, there was no reduction in Hezbollah rocket fire during the 33 days of fighting because an estimated 95% of the rockets fired at Israel were short-range 107mm and 122mm Katyushas,[4] which are very difficult to detect from the air.

Indeed, there was no observable degradation of Hezbollah military capabilities at all during the war. The quality and endurance of its military performance exceeded Israeli expectations in virtually every domain, from the volume and accuracy of rocket fire into northern Israel (which peaked in the final week of the war) to the sophistication of its communications network and artful camouflage of heavy military equipment and bunkers (belying the initial assumption of Israeli war planners that air power alone would be sufficient to destroy them). On the second day of the war, Nasrallah called a Lebanese television station from his bunker and instructed viewers to look out their windows as a Hezbollah missile slammed into an offshore Israeli warship (the crew of which was evidently unaware that Hezbollah even had a coastal defense capability). There were reports that Hezbollah even managed to intercept IDF radio communications.[5] After the war, Brig. Gen. Guy Zur, the commander of 162nd Armor Division, later proclaimed Hezbollah to be "by far the greatest guerrilla group in the world."[6]

In contrast, Israel's military performance fell well short of expectations. Troops were sent into battle without sufficient food, water and basic supplies, apparently because of recent cuts in defense spending. The prioritization of diplomatic goals accounts for much of the vacillation and hesitancy of Israeli officials in directing the campaign - a leadership failure terribly out of step with Israeli military doctrine. While the Israeli military campaign was hardly a success, the war nevertheless greatly curtailed Hezbollah's freedom to project its military power, owing to Israel's strategic and diplomatic successes.

The Strategic Outcome

When Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora informed the assembled heads of Lebanon's main political blocs that hotel rooms for the 2006 summer tourist season were booked solid during the last round of Lebanon's national dialogue conference in June, Nasrallah reportedly replied, "You see, Mr. Prime Minister, the weapons of the resistance do not scare off tourists."[7]

The Israeli campaign was intended first and foremost to scare off the tourists - to raise the costs of Hezbollah's adventurism to such a degree that deliberate provocations will not be politically tenable for the foreseeable future. Even Nasrallah himself has more or less acknowledged that this goal was achieved. "If I had known on July 11 . . . that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not," he said in an August 27 interview.[8]

The Israeli campaign also enhanced Israeli deterrence of Hezbollah in another important respect. One of its principal aims, according to Israeli security analyst Yossi Alpher, was "to prove to Nasrallah that civilian Israel is far, far stronger than a spider web" and signal that "strategic decisions will not be influenced by civilian casualties."[9] He was referring to the so-called "spider web theory" popularized by Nasrallah, which holds that Israel's dazzling technological superiority masks a weak consumer society that is losing its willingness to make sacrifices in defense of its interests (an assessment that more than a few Israelis would agree with). For all of the postwar acrimony in Israel, there is now an almost unanimous willingness to make sacrifices in pursuit of national security.

This is why Hezbollah's claim that the war enhanced its deterrence of Israel isn't valid. To be sure, as Nasrallah boasted, the fighting demonstrated that "war with Lebanon will not be a picnic."[10] Indeed, The Jerusalem Post proclaimed that the "wholesale injury to Israel's civilian infrastructure" by over 4,000 Hezbollah rockets fired during the war was "unprecedented even by comparison to past [Israeli] wars."[11] However, upgraded Israeli perceptions of Hezbollah's capabilities have not translated into enhanced deterrence - they have left a sizable majority of Israelis eager for a rematch.

Nevertheless, the strategic balance sheet was by no means uniformly positive for Israel. Olmert may have compromised Israel's strategic credibility by initially demanding the unconditional release of its soldiers as a prior condition for a ceasefire, then later dropping the demand. Although not demanding their release may have been unthinkable in view of Israeli public opinion at the time (as Olmert is now quick to point out), this vacillation may weaken perceptions of Israel's resolve the next time one of its citizens is kidnapped. Much will depend on whether Olmert agrees to trade the three Lebanese it held prior to the war (on terrorism charges) for the release of the two Israeli soldiers, or merely exchange the Hezbollah fighters it captured during the war.

While Iran's ability to incite anti-Israeli violence from Lebanese soil will be impaired for some time to come, its ability to mobilize other combatants in the anti-Zionist front may receive a boost from Israel's lackluster military performance. Indeed, the most powerful lesson of the war, to both Palestinians militants and the Israeli public, may be that borders are less effective in obstructing external attacks on Israel than in impeding forceful Israeli reprisals.[12] A comparison of monthly surveys by Near East Consulting of Ramallah suggests that Palestinians have been emboldened by Hezbollah's declaration of solidarity and battlefield performance.[13]

The Diplomatic Outcome

Israel's primary diplomatic objective of the campaign was to precipitate UN Security Council intervention in south Lebanon to block Hezbollah's freedom of action. In this regard, as the Wall Street Journal aptly observed, the governments of Israel, the United States, and Lebanon "were working together off much the same script" in the early days of the crisis.[14]

Resolution 1701, which ended the hostilities in mid-August, was a diplomatic coup for Israel, calling for the deployment of an expanded 15,000-strong UNIFIL peacekeeping force to ensure that Lebanese territory south of the Litani River "is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind [and] to resist attempts by forceful means to prevent it from discharging its duties." It prohibits other countries from sending weapons into Lebanon without the government's approval and calls for the unconditional release of the captured Israeli soldiers. Finally, while 1701 calls for the "the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks," it calls for Israel merely to cease all "offensive military operations" (a deliberately vague phrase that allows Israel to justify virtually anything as a defensive military operation).[15]

The deployment of UNIFIL II in south Lebanon will likely prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding its complex array of bunkers, tunnels, and surveillance posts in at least some areas of south Lebanon. Although Hezbollah can easily infiltrate commando units past UNIFIL and Lebanese troops to get to the border, it will have great difficulty gathering the kind of intelligence (e.g. on Israeli troop deployments and patrol schedules) needed to guarantee a high rate of operational success. Hezbollah will not have much difficulty storing short-range rockets south of the Litani, but it will not be able to fully deploy them without detection (and will likely be deterred from firing them in response to anything short of a major unprovoked Israeli air or ground offensive).

Notwithstanding the tough language of Resolution 1701, its lack of a Chapter VII mandate leaves UNIFIL subordinate to the authority of the Lebanese government. Prior to the war, the ruling March 14 coalition was too politically weak to make any major policy decision without Hezbollah's endorsement (let alone one that would erode its autonomy). The most ambitious aim of the war was to change this.

The Political Outcome

The crux of the Lebanese government's weakness is the fact that overriding Hezbollah's objections (i.e. by a majority vote of the cabinet) would lead to the departure of all Shiite ministers from the cabinet. Thus, defiance of Nasrallah is feasible only if the coalition can find credible Shiite public figures willing to defy a Hezbollah boycott and join a new cabinet, or if it is resolved to rule without any pretense of legitimacy in the eyes of Lebanese largest sectarian group. The first scenario requires a substantial erosion of Shiite support for Hezbollah, while the second requires a substantial hardening of non-Shiite (particularly Sunni) perceptions of Hezbollah. Public opinion polls conducted in Lebanon during and after the war confirm that the Israeli bombardment achieved the opposite on both scores.

The Israelis do not appear to have had any strategy for undermining support for Hezbollah within the Shiite community other than elevating its level of collective suffering. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) drove nearly a million mostly Shiite residents of south Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut from their homes. While it did not specifically target Shiite civilians, the IAF was given substantial latitude to put them at risk in attacking Hezbollah targets. The fact that Hezbollah operated military command and control centers offices on the ground and subterranean floors of residential apartment buildings (and, in at least one case, a hospital) and routinely fired rockets from residential areas of villages made it virtually impossible to significantly degrade its military capabilities without exercising such latitude. Nasrallah was clearly confident that massive collateral damage from an Israeli assault would bolster, not dampen, public support for Hezbollah and the Israelis had no coherent strategy for minimizing this risk.

The deaths of 28 civilians in a July 30 Israeli air strike on the village of Qana, where 106 civilians taking refuge in a UN compound were killed by Israeli artillery fire in 1996, suggest that no special precautions were taken to avoid being baited into an eponymous repeat of the "Qana massacre" (a tragedy commemorated by a gruesome museum). Strangely, when the Israelis hacked into the satellite signal of Hezbollah's Al-Manar Television two days later and interrupted its evening news with their own message to the Lebanese people, no effort was made to cast blame for the deaths on Hezbollah. Instead, viewers were treated to crude images of guerrilla corpses, with captions claiming that Nasrallah was hiding the magnitude of Hezbollah's defeat on the battlefield.[16] The Israelis either failed to understand that Shiite support for Hezbollah is not integrally linked to its battlefield success or were more concerned with influencing Palestinian viewers.

The apparent willingness of most Shiites to stand by Hezbollah was buoyed by Nasrallah's repeated promises that the movement would pay to rebuild their homes and businesses destroyed by the air strikes (and quick distribution of $10,000 cash payments to each displaced family for alternate living expenses while their homes are being rebuilt). Hezbollah may not have expected the Israeli campaign, but it acted with the confidence of knowing that Iran could afford to rebuild far more than Israel could afford to destroy without alienating the outside world.

If Israel was hoping to sow dissension among Shiites, it committed a major blunder by bombing the residence of Lebanon's most senior and respected Shiite cleric, Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, on July 15. Although frequently dubbed "the spiritual leader of Hezbollah" by many Western media outlets (a misnomer dating back to the early 1980s, when Hezbollah expressed allegiance to him as a way of legitimizing itself), Fadlallah openly disputes the religious authority of Iran's ruling clerics leaders and has a very contentious (if outwardly amicable) relationship with Nasrallah.[17] If anyone in the Shiite community had the stature and motivation to depart from Nasrallah's script and voice a more nuanced interpretation of the war with Israel, it was Fadlallah. Although several secular Shiite intellectuals criticized Hezbollah during and after the fighting in articles run by elite-owned newspapers and one Shiite cleric later challenged Hezbollah's claim to have won a great victory,[18] dissent against Hezbollah remained surprisingly marginal within the Shiite community, in spite of its immense suffering.

It appears that both the Israelis and the Americans were banking primarily on a souring of non-Shiite public perceptions of Hezbollah to push the Lebanese government into accepting a robust MNF deployment. While the immense collateral damage of Israeli air strikes was heavily concentrated in Shiite areas, the abrupt annulment of Lebanon's lucrative summer tourist season, cessation of air and sea traffic into the country, and destruction of major bridges and highway interchanges were acutely felt by all Lebanese. During the first few days of the war, displays of hostility toward Hezbollah among Sunnis, Christians, and Druze were widespread.

However, public anger at Hezbollah was quickly overshadowed by outrage toward Israel as the economic toll of the bombardment mounted, and then began dissipating as the progression of the war (seen through victims' eyes) appeared to corroborate longstanding Hezbollah propaganda claims. The targeting of Lebanon's infrastructure and industry gave credence to Nasrallah's warnings that Israel was looking for any pretext to destroy the Lebanese economy (a pitch that played on inflated perceptions many Lebanese have of their economy's importance). The Bush administration's refusal to call for an unconditional cease-fire during the Israeli onslaught seemed to validate one of Nasrallah's favorite admonitions - that the American support so brazenly flaunted by Hariri and Jumblatt was fickle and ultimately subordinate to Washington's alliance with Israel and pursuit of regional vendettas.

The war undermined the March 14 coalition's political leverage not only by revealing its modest placement in the scale of American priorities and boosting public support for Hezbollah, but also by exposing the Siniora government's total lack of planning for the contingency of a full-blown Israeli air campaign. The government did little to evacuate or aid displaced from south Lebanon in the first days of the war, a lapse in keeping with the state's longstanding neglect of its predominantly Shiite inhabitants. ''It's always Beirut, it is never the people in the south,'' former United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) spokesman Timur Goksel remarked to a reporter. ''How will the government ever convince the people of the south that 'we are looking out for you?'''[19] The absence of March 14 Coalition leader Saad Hariri from Lebanon during the entire war didn't communicate a message of solidarity with its victims.

The government's relief effort mainly involved transferring aid supplies to local civic groups for distribution to victims, but even this modest task was hampered by incompetence and corruption. On August 6, spokesmen for 35 local humanitarian organizations called a news conference to complain that "relief aid is being apportioned according to political considerations," accusing the Higher Relief Committee (a government agency operating out of the prime minister's office) of favoring the charitable arms of groups in the governing coalition (e.g. Hariri's Future Movement) in the distribution of supplies.[20] There were reports that an official at the Ministry of Health and two accomplices were caught selling medicine donated by international aid agencies, and that one of them was quickly released because of his political connections.[21] In a scathing editorial, the English language Daily Star noted the stark contrast between the "mind-boggling efficiency and professionalism" of Hezbollah and the "inefficient and corrupt" political class.[22]

Perhaps the most damaging blow to the political class came in September, when the head of the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR), Fadhl Chalak, abruptly resigned and accused the government of stalling its acceptance of hundreds of millions of dollars pledged by Arab states during the war, a delay that he said was intended to increase suffering in the south and turn the people against Hezbollah.[23] The allegation may not have been credible, but the fact that a leading figure in the late Hariri's economic team (and a Sunni) would so shamelessly court Hezbollah after a falling out with Saad Hariri speaks volumes about Nasrallah's post-war stature.

Implications

While Israel achieved significant strategic and diplomatic goals, the war against Hezbollah was a political disaster for Olmert, who suffered the most rapid plummet of public approval ratings for an Israeli prime minister in decades. While there is a strong public consensus in Israel that the military campaign was a failure, this is partly because of popular misconceptions (inflated by Olmert's bellicose rhetoric early in the campaign) about what was realistically possible to achieve. Israel might have dealt Hezbollah a more serious blow had a different military strategy been followed, but there was never a viable prospect of preventing its regeneration once the dust settled.

Although Hezbollah suffered strategic and diplomatic setbacks, the war dramatically boosted its domestic and regional popular appeal, while eroding the strength of its adversaries. This gives Nasrallah considerably more political leverage than he had before the war, effectively shelving any prospect of pressuring Hezbollah to disarm in advance (and therefore in lieu, many Shiites would say) of far-reaching political and economic reforms. Siniora ordered a Lebanese military deployment of unprecedented strength south of the Litani River, but only after reaching an agreement with Nasrallah whereby Hezbollah keeps its weapons out of public view and the army pretends it doesn't see them.[24] Much like the governing coalition's 2005 electoral pact with Hezbollah, this "don't look, don't tell" arrangement was billed as a compromise, but largely preserved the status quo ante. At any rate, the largely Shiite composition of the army effectively precludes any effort by Siniora to depart from this arrangement.[25] Although Siniora may be susceptible to pressure from the West to allow UN peacekeepers to gradually increase pressure on Hezbollah, the movement's military performance in the recent war has dampened European (particularly French) enthusiasm for robust intervention in south Lebanon far more than anyone cares to publicly admit.

Since there is no way for Israel to disrupt re-supply of Hezbollah short of bombing all trucking traffic from Syria into Lebanon,[26] the arms embargo imposed by Resolution 1701 cannot be enforced without the earnest cooperation of either the Lebanese or Syrian governments. The sudden proliferation of calls for negotiations with Assad among American pundits is a pretty good indicator of how dimly prospects for the former are viewed in Washington.

Nevetheless, the outcome of the war may prove to be a stable equilibrium. Though he has essentially defused internal pressure to disarm, Nasrallah appears to recognize that violent provocation of Israel will be far too risky for the foreseeable future. For the time being, Hezbollah is likely to concentrate on rebuilding residential structures destroyed in the war (with generous assistance from the Iranians) and warding off international efforts to secure its disarmament. Barring any major provocations, Israel will have little incentive (other than public clamoring) to re-ignite full-scale war (and little American encouragement to do so).

The implications of the war for outsiders cut several ways. Washington gained some strategic leverage over Iran (and, perhaps, some insights into the difficulties of combating a religious sect that celebrates martyrdom), but its refusal to call for an unconditional ceasefire during the fighting enflamed anti-American sentiments throughout the Arab world, weakened the Lebanese political coalition it was hoping to strengthen, and embarrassed Arab governments that followed its lead by criticizing Hezbollah early in the campaign. The war also set in motion congressional pressure on the administration to take punitive actions against the Lebanese government so long as Hezbollah is represented in the cabinet. All in all, the ability of the White House to decisively impact Lebanon's political trajectory has declined.

For Iran, the returns are mixed. The expanded UNIFIL deployment and Lebanon's new political map will discourage Iranian efforts to incite anti-Israeli violence from Lebanese soil (a significant, if not decisive, strategic setback) as Tehran comes under greater international pressure to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program. Although Iran derived some diplomatic leverage from the crisis (underscored by the French foreign minister's visit to Tehran during the fighting), the conventional wisdom that Iran has emerged stronger "by showing the world that it is capable of wreaking havoc through its support of the Hezbollah militants" must be qualified.[27] The resolve of the United States and Western European governments to derail Iran's nuclear program has not been substantially weakened by the crisis (widely seen as taste of the kind of troublemaking that will be in store for the region once Iran achieves a nuclear deterrent), as was evident from the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1696 on July 31. However, the presence of European troops in close proximity to Hezbollah guerrillas may discourage support for American military action against Iran down the road.

Burgeoning anti-Israeli hostility in the Arab world obviously has its benefits for Iran, although the devastation of Lebanon during the war might temper its ability to translate pervasive anti-Israeli hostility among Palestinians into organized acts of violence. The recent outpouring of popular support for Hezbollah across the region may discourage some Arab governments from overtly supporting American policy on Iran, but it has hardly mitigated their desire to see the end of Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The pacification of south Lebanon is a significant strategic setback for Assad, and his blunder of having provided Hezbollah with substantial quantities of imported Russian anti-tank missiles (apparently with serial numbers intact) and other weapons will likely complicate, if not preclude, future Syrian arms purchases from Moscow.[28] However, he derived considerable political capital from the war - both because Hezbollah is very popular among Syria's youth and because its increased stature in Lebanon may blunt the March 14 coalition's hostility to Syria. It has also given him a new diplomatic lease on life, as a host of dignitaries in the American and Israeli foreign policy establishments have come out in favor of negotiations with Syria.

Notes

  [1] See Israel, Hezbollah Claim Victories After Weeks of Fighting, PBS, 4 August 2006.
  [2] When a team of Hezbollah commandos botched an attempted cross-border kidnapping raid last November, the Israeli press quoted unnamed sources in the Labor Party warning the government not to escalate hostilities "to score electoral points." Israel responded with a modest artillery reprisal, then promptly returned their bodies (rather than the usual practice of holding them as bargaining chips). "Feeling threatened, Hezbollah strikes at familiar enemy - Israel," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 30 November 2005.
  [3] "No confidence in the commander," Haaretz, 21 August 2006.
  [4] "Analysis: Hezbollah's recovery timetable," United Press International, 7 September 2006.
  [5] "Hezbollah cracked the code; Technology likely supplied by Iran allowed guerrillas to stop Israeli tank assaults," Newsday (New York), 18 September 2006.
  [6] "Israeli military studies Hezbollah's resilience; Guerrillas kept fighting in face of stronger force," USA Today, 14 September 2006.
  [7] This is Jumblatt's recollection of the exchange. Al-Sharq al-Awsat (London), 23 July 2006.
  [8] "Hezbollah leader says he wouldn't have ordered soldiers' capture knowing it would lead to war," The Associated Press, 27 August 2006.
  [9] Yossi Alpher, The revenge of the spider, The Crisis Today-An Insider's Briefing, 18 July 2006.
  [10] Al-Manar TV, 14 August 2006.
  [11] "Heal the North," The Jerusalem Post, 21 August 2006.
  [12] The war had a powerful demonstration effect inimical to Israeli security, as explained by Anthony Cordesman: "[that] non-state actors can be effective; that fixed, narrow areas of defense to separate Israelis from Palestinians and others . . . can be bypassed, that they are not an effective way of defending Israel." Transcript of briefing by Anthony Cordesman, The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 17 August 2006.
  [13] In early August, 54% of Palestinian respondents believed that Hamas should "maintain its position on the elimination of the state of Israel," up from 44% in June (though the Israeli incursions into Gaza during this interval likely contributed to this spike). Near East Consulting, Palestinian Perceptions toward Politics, Peace, and the conflict in the Lebanon, 7 August 2006.
  [14] "Why Israel's Plans To Curb Hezbollah Went So Poorly," The Wall Street Journal, 19 August 2006.
  [15] UN Security Council Resolution 1701, 11 August 2006.
  [16] "Israel hacks into Hezbollah TV, broadcasts propaganda," Agence France Presse, 1 August 2006.
  [17] After being fired as director of Hezbollah's Al-Manar Television station in 2003, Nayef Krayem wrote in a public reply that he had been unjustly accused of "being with Fadlallah." Al-Nahar (Beirut), 12 May 2003. Cited in Hizbollah: Rebel without a Cause? International Crisis Group, 30 July 2003.
  [18] Lebanese Shiite Mufti of Tyre Ali Al-Amin Harshly Criticizes Hizbullah for Its Conduct in the Recent Conflict, MEMRI, 26 August 2006.
  [19] "Lebanon's Government, Once Bold, Keeps a Low Profile," The New York Times, 15 July 2006.
  [20] "Questions abound over state's relief effort," The Daily Star (Beirut), 9 August 2006.
  [21] "Questions abound over state's relief effort," The Daily Star (Beirut), 9 August 2006.
  [22] "Hizbullah action, government inaction in poignant contrast," The Daily Star, 19 August 2006.
  [23] See "Ruined Towns Look to Beirut, Mostly in Vain," The New York Times, 1 October 2006.
  [24] Officially, the army is under ambiguous orders to "ensure respect" for the UN-demarcated border and "apply the existing laws with regard to any weapons outside the authority of the Lebanese state." See "Lebanon Skirts Issue of Hezbollah's Arms," The Associated Press, 16 August 2006.
  [25] Although precise data is not available, the proportion of Shiites in the military rank and file is believed to be even larger than in the population as a whole. See "Lebanese army shifts from spectator to peacekeeper in south Lebanon," The Associated Press, 16 August 2006.
  [26] There have been rumors of tunnels dug beneath the border in the Akkar region. See "A Cease-Fire Drives into a Mirage on a Border that Disappears as It Gets Closer," The New York Times, 16 September 2006.
  [27] Helene Cooper, "Caution: This Coalition Is Fragile," The New York Times, 23 August 2006.
  [28] "Israel Says Syria, Not Just Iran, Supplied Missiles to Hezbollah," The Los Angeles Times, 31 August 2006.