Strategic. That was to have been Iran's second front. No longer ... at least not for the next two years (which should be long enough) and perhaps permanently.

The jeremiads from the Israeli and American Right are so much tilting at windmills. They arise from the misconception that Hezbollah is simply a terrorist organization and that our objective was to destroy it.

To expand on ghostcat's first point: Strategic because Hezbollah's strategy is to gather support from other Muslim Jew-haters by being as big a threat to Israel as possible. They must know they can't destroy Israel with these missiles and kidnappings, of course, but they can tie them up in PR knots, make them look bad when they retaliate, and maybe start a regional war.

It's also not tactical because the missiles are so inaccurate they have no tactical value. They shot, what, 3,000 missiles and killed 41 people? And lost hundreds of fighters and lots of infrastructure doing it? A few more "victories" like that and Hezbollah is gone and Iran is bankrupt.

Ghost & Papa: They shot 3,000+ missiles (from an estimated 12,000+) and only killed ~40 people, but they managed to cause the evacuation/bunkerization of most northern Israeli cities and disruption of the Israeli economy, not to mention winning the PR and the U.N. war. They are now re-occupying southern Lebanon and will be re-armed by Syria and Iran. The Lebanese and UNFIL forces can prevent nothing nor disarm anyone.

The Israelis have accomplished nothing and only postponed the inevitable. They don't have their kidnapped soldiers back; they never prevented the rocket attacks; they have not disarmed Hezballah, which will re-occupy southern Lebanon and re-arm. Nothing was accomplished, nothing was gained, the opportunity was lost.

I suspect that what Israel did this time was politicaly necessary and was probably as much as they could have done. After all, Israel has a large peacenik movement that would put our to shame. They agitate for peace & surrender even as the badguys are blowing them to bits.

But the *next* time that Hezbollah makes a serious attack, the Israel war guys have clearance to say, "We tried it your way last time and see what it got us? This time we're going to settle the Hez mess once and for all."

ray:

The Israeli 'peace' movement is dead. They had national unity for fight Hezbollah to the finish this time.

Neither tactical nor strategic, but rather criminal terrorism. To suggest otherwise betrays misunderstanding of the terms themselves.

The enemy rockets are too inaccurate to be tactically effective, and too weak to be strategically significant. Their only purpose is to harm civilians, to impose Schrecklichkeit, intentional, deliberate terror, to coerce the civilian population, like the German army in Belgium at the start of World War One. The terror rockets are aimed neither at specific military objectives nor at strategic resources, but only at a few innocent non-combatants.

The language must be taken back. The way these barbarian swine operate is totally criminal. The weak sisters shrink away from this as one more truth they cannot handle.

It's not terrorism when you're at war. Harming civilians is a perfectly sound strategy for defeating a democracy. Hezbollah's problem is it can't harm enough to present a strategic threat.

jim:

The candidate who runs most closely to Sharon's disengagement position will win. The recent war demonstrated the stupidity of engagement.

"Hezbollah's problem is it can't harm enough to present a strategic threat."

Yes, this whole episode was a huge non-event really. Israel is in no mortal danger from Hezbollah. 41 dead citizens of which almost half were Arab. The economic disruption is not good but the Dispora is steping up on this already.

"The candidate who runs most closely to Sharon's disengagement position will win."

Not in this universe. Israel will, for better or worse, turn on the advocates of disengagement. Olmert is a slice of political toast as is the Labor leader. Likud will win the next round.

"The recent war demonstrated the stupidity of engagement."

Perhaps but Israel will not draw that lesson, what they take away is when they withdraw, rockets follow.

ray:

This was next time.

It was when the entered that rockets followed.

Don't underestimate the will to surrender of a dying people.