How Hezbollah Defeated Israel


Courtesy Of: Asia Times Online
By Alastair Crooke and Mark Perry
(Oct, '06)
http://atimes.com


PART 1
The intelligence war

The Israeli government violated the first principle of war - it showed contempt for its enemy, Hezbollah, and the resulting intelligence failure during its July campaign was catastrophic. It meant that, after the inability of Israel's air campaign to degrade Hezbollah assets in the first 72 hours of the war, a decisive victory for Israel became highly unlikely. This left Israel with no alternative but to invade Lebanon with ground troops in the hope of destroying Hezbollah's will to prevail.


PART 2
The ground war

Israel's call up of reservists was the first clear sign that its air strikes against Hezbollah had not been successful. Then came false claims of towns captured and battles won, and the indiscriminate use of cluster munitions. By any accounting - whether in rockets, armored vehicles or numbers of dead and wounded - Hezbollah scored a decisive military and political victory.


PART 3
The political war

The aftermath of the Israel-Hezbollah war will be felt for years, not months, and has redrawn the political map throughout the Middle East, not just in Israel and Lebanon. And the upshot of it all is that if and when the US attacks Iran, it will lose.

Click here for all ATol coverage of the Israel-Hezbollah war: