Quote Originally Posted by Culpeper
If the current situation remains as planned then Hizbollah has lost the ability to rebuild what they help get destroyed. Oh, they will try but it is going to be difficult under the eyes of the entire world this time. It would be up to the UN to manage the rebuilding as such.
Current plans are simply to disarm Hezballah; to eliminate them as a armed militia independent of the Lebanese government. "Under the eyes of the world" only matters in that context. The organization retains its representation in the Lebanese parliament, and they will also retain all of their social welfare infrastructure. The only obstacle to their engaging in reconstruction is the continued IDF presence in certain areas. In all other areas there is nothing to stop them from moving forward with rebuilding.

As regards disarmament, I - along with countless others, I'm sure - am waiting to see how the process is going to turn out. An Israeli general has already spoken out against integrating former Hezballah fighters in the Lebanese Army. Some other form of actionable DDR program has to be put into place for disarmament to be effective.
Quote Originally Posted by Culpeper
I don't consider the Lebanese government a victim. I consider them a co-dependent of Hizbollah and blaming the current U.S. administration for allowing Lebanon to take their own medicine is not a mistake in the long term. I see no sense in the U.S. enabling the government of Lebanon into taking half measures as being good enough. Thus, the U.S. focusing on other problems rather than enabling Lebanon was not a mistake.
This is a nation that was just recovering from roughly 15 years of civil war followed by years of foreign domination. While Israel occupied a southern "security zone", the Lebanese central government was not only weak, but effectively under Syrian dominance, if not outright control. After the Israelis finally withdrew from south Lebanon six years ago, most Lebanese wanted to see Hezballah disarmed. However, with Hezballah being a client of Syria, the Lebanese had no choice but to accept their armed presence and provocations on the border with Israel. The Cedar Revolution provided an opportunity, but the Lebanese government and security forces were still too weak, and Hezballah and the Shi'a too unwilling, to disarm and integrate the organization without descent into a new civil war. There was a moment when the U.S. and the West could have stepped in and achieved a strategic victory - without force of arms. It passed.
...you stated that Israel didn't win anything and then later claimed Israel won militarily.
I never "claimed" that Israel won militarily. I simply said that "Israel did not lose this fracas militarily". The mere fact of not losing does not automatically translate into a win. There was no clear military victor in this campaign. The IDF certainly has the lead by measure of pure destruction, but Hezballah continued to inflict casualties and fire rockets up until the cease-fire. There were not many head-to-head engagements in the campaign. When that did occur, the IDF hammered Hezballah. But Hezballah, like any other irregular force, prefers hit-and-run engagements. These resulted in casualties on the IDF side, and sometimes resulted in the deaths of the Hezballah ambush teams. Did they hurt the IDF militarily? No. But the Israeli public is extremely casualty-conscious (far more so than the U.S. public), so Hezballah achieved a little IO victory with each IDF WIA/KIA. Did the IDF hurt Hezballah militarily? Yes. But not to the point of crippling the organization to a degree from which it can't recover in the near-to-mid term.

As stated above, the key to how this all turns out in the near term lies in how the mandate for the new "peacekeeping" force is structured - but in the long-term the Lebanese government and security forces need to be strengthened in order to ensure stability. And they have been crippled by this campaign to a greater degree than has Hezballah.