21 July Washington Times - Inside the Ring by Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough.

...We asked a former Navy combat pilot to assess the Israeli air force's war against Hezbollah. He told us:

"I'm reminded of the 1982 war with Syria. I was sitting off the coast of Lebanon on the USS Independence. Every day there would be headlines about how the Syrians had shot down another Israeli aircraft. A close look at the news clips showed that they had actually shot down a UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle]/drone — not an Israeli aircraft. This was, in fact, an Israeli tactic. They knew how many SAMs [surface-to-air missiles] Syria had and were counting down the attrition rate. They denied Syria any Soviet resupply of those SAM assets. When Israel had determined that Syria had expended their inventory of SAMs, they launched a tremendous air strike against Syria, which resulted in a victory within about 48 hours.

"So, today, I think the war of attrition is still the plan. Israel really wants the current government of Lebanon to succeed, but know they don't have the wherewithal to accomplish it without getting rid of Hezbollah and ensuring that Hezbollah cannot be resupplied by Iran or Syria.

"Ergo, the bombing/cratering of the runways at Beirut international airport — these Israelis are not dumb — a careful review of their bombing will show you that they carefully, with precision, cratered the runways at intersections so that no runways could be used. The road to Damascus was cratered so that no supplies could be brought in.

"Israel knows within a dozen or so how many Katyushka missiles Hezbollah has [and their inaccuracy] and how many other Iran-supplied longer range missiles that could hit Tel Aviv. I suspect they're waiting this attrition out and will then make an effort to destroy Hezbollah. I also won't be surprised when Israel air forces pass unmolested through Iraq airspace [controlled by the U.S.] on their way to and from Iran." ...