Recent news has it that the Lebanese urged Israel to focus their effort on Hezbollah in Lebanon and not hit other targets that hurt Lebanon:
Wikileaks confirmed yet another suspected, but never confirmed, relationship between Lebanon and Israel. American diplomatic reports from 2008 detail discussions between the Lebanese defense minister and American officials. The Lebanese minister discussed how Israel could hit key Hezbollah targets, and cripple the Iranian backed Shia force. The minister also believed that Israel could take out Hezbollah without enraging the rest of Lebanon if the fighting was confined to Hezbollah held areas. It was also important that targets in Christian Lebanese areas not be bombed. While most Lebanese are hostile to Israel, they are also uneasy about the Iranian supported Hezbollah militia.Back when the Israelis were hammering Hezbollah in August 2006, I was frustrated that Israel was hitting Lebanon's infrastructure rather than focusing their efforts on Hezbollah. It was folly, I thought, to believe the rest of Lebanon could be pressured into taking down Hezbollah. The rest of Lebanon was (and is) too weak and divided to smash Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah. The best that could be hoped for is that the rest of Lebanon would happily watch Israel smash up Hezbollah. But Israel attacked the rest of Lebanon and made Hezbollah and the non-Shia parts of Lebanon a common victim of the Israelis. Pretty dumb for the Israelis, I thought.
Israel got precision weapons from us since then and understands that their dumb munitions didn't even work when aimed at Hezbollah (I thought I blogged on this recently, but can't find the post), so Israel seems to understand that area bombing won't work.
Knowing that precision bombing as well as precision in who to target are key assumptions for the next round will go a long way to erasing the loss of 2006.
