We Can Hope
CNN is reporting: Security Council passes resolution to end conflict in Lebanon. Israel won’t vote on the measure until Sunday because of the Sabbath.
No word yet on whether Hezbollah is willing to accept the deal.
Everything I’m hearing and reading indicates that not long after the fighting stops, Likud will force a no confidence vote and call for elections to replace Kadima and Olmert. There will probably be a major purge in the IDF staff.
The reason is that people are upset that the IDF couldn’t roll into Beirut in 48 hours, like the last invasion.
Nicholas Blanford in The Christian Science Monitor writes that Hizbullah’s resilience built on years of homework. Based on Israeli sources, Blanford says that, rather than the RPG-7 and AT-7 Konkurs I assumed, Hezbollah has the RPG-29, and both the AT-13 Metis and AT-14 Kornet-E anti-tank missile systems, which are current issue in the Russian army. The Kornet can be used effectively against low flying helicopters. [The Russians say that they are not selling the systems to Hezbollah, which is probably true in a technical sense. I doubt the buyers identified themselves as Hezbollah, more likely as the “Shebaa Farmers Cooperative.”]
Juan Cole links to Sic Semper Tyrannis where Pat Lang, former Defense Intelligence Agency head for the Middle East, says that his sources are saying that the IDF never made contact with the real Hezbollah army, but was hung up in the border villages by local reservists who are on a first name basis with every rock.
Pat, who should know, says this wasn’t a guerrilla war, and if the IDF doesn’t figure that out, they are toast. Nosce Hostem.
3 comments
Sheesh…not enough WAR in their *war*…eh?
At least according to Nice Polite Republicans this morning, Hezbollah has said that it will abide by the terms of the UN cease-fire resolution. Though given that Israel is not suspending military operations in Lebanon out of respect for Shabbat, I have to wonder whether that attitude might change…
I have a post on the the BBC announcement and Hezbollah is being just as oily as the Israelis.
This isn’t over, but maybe people can get a few meals and the kids can be moved out before the next round.
These people really want Iran and Hezbollah to control the oil, because that’s where this is going if this isn’t settled.