Tuesday, August 15, 2006

A dummy run against Hezbollah

By Ehsan Ahrari
Asia Times

"If that, indeed, is true, then America's image as a military power, along with the image of the Israeli military, has been severely tarnished. This is not the end of the negative spillover effect from Israel's palpable failure to damage severely the fighting capabilities of Hezbollah. The United States might be in for more damaging fallout emanating from this fiasco.

Now that there is ceasefire, there are ample discussions of who won and who emerged as a loser in this war. From the Arab perspectives, there are still two clear winners and three equally apparent losers. The chief winner is Hezbollah and its execution of asymmetric war against the high-tech Israeli military. As much as he is berated in the US and in Israel, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has created a niche for himself as an Arab hero of this war.

The second major winner is Iran and its low-tech missiles and training of Hezbollah. It is worth noting, however, that Iran still faces the long shot of becoming a target of the Bush doctrine of regime change that continues to lurk in the background."

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