There are many ways to read the latest war in Lebanon.
Many Lebanese remain puzzled by the strategic thinking behind a month-long aerial campaign ... One goal was nearly achieved by the last days of fighting. The bombing did succeed in displacing some nine tenths of Lebanon's estimated 1.2 million Shias.
This Israeli campaign appears to have had two purposes. One was psychological: underlining the fact that Hezbollah had failed to fulfill its role as a protector of even its own people, the Shia, let alone of Lebanon as a whole. The other was military: to clear the south Lebanon "fighting box" of civilians, so as to allow the Israeli army to make use of its heaviest antipersonnel weaponry without fear of bad publicity.
Hezbollah's offensive weapons were not especially effective. The four thousand or so rockets it fired killed just forty-one civilians, a third of them "Israeli Arabs." But the guerrillas' skillful use of light field weapons ... appears to have rendered Israel's lumbering Merkava ("Chariot") tanks pretty useless.
At this writing, most Lebanese who do not share Hezbollah's triumphalism, and they are many, remain pessimistic about the chances of taming the party. "Lebanon is finished" is a refrain often heard in private.
I disagree with the author's claim that Katyusha rockets were ineffective. If the purpose was terror, rather than mass casualties, then one could conclude they were reasonably effective, as the north of Israel was essentially shut down for the duration of the conflict, with Israelis trapped in their secure bunkers.
