Should a new war break out, Israel is determined to strike a more devastating blow more quickly than it did during the last conflict, in which it failed in its objective of destroying Hizballah. It has publicly warned that it would destroy Lebanese civilian infrastructure, and that Syria, as Hizballah's armorer, would not be off-limits. But Hizballah believes its capacity to fire missiles into Tel Aviv is key to restraining Israel from returning to finish off the Shi'ite militia. And, of course, amid regional tensions over Iran's nuclear program, members of the self-styled "axis of resistance" - Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hizballah - have deepened their alliance, raising the possibility of any one of those groups joining the fray should any of the others come under attack from Israel or the U.S.
I said early that Israel screwed the pooch on the Hizbollah War of 2006 (and the related Gaza operation). I was given little reason to change that assessment as more information came in on the war. Here's one post-mortem on how the Israelis screwed up in southern Lebanon.
But I've had confidence that the Israelis would do better the next time and do what they should have done in 2006--move in fast with lots of troops to overrun the rocket launch sites rather than rely on aerial bombardment to stop the rockets from hitting Israel.
Hezbollah is foolish if it thinks that its longer range rockets deter Israel from "finishing off" Hezbollah. Israel already knows that it should have used massive ground power in 2006 and the ability of Hezbollah to strike deeper into Israel will only increase Israel's motivation to pound Hezbollah on the ground.
Those rockets that Hezbollah has are no key to deterrence without the ability to defend the launch sites from Israeli ground forces. Israel will not rely on air power to suppress the far larger number of rockets that Hezbollah now has. No, the rockets will just be the keys to paradise of lots of Hezbollah members and people who get in the way as the Israelis take over southern Lebanon.
The only question will be how long Israel stays in southern Lebanon. Do they regret leaving southern Lebanon since abansoning that territory did not remove motivation to attack Israel? Or do the Israelis stay long enough to scour the area to cleanse it of enemy forces and arms depots in a narrower effort to buy time?
And if the Israelis want to stay, will any potential local allies step up after Israel abandoned southern lebanon allies once to their fate?
