Hezbollah Lost

For those of you interested in the non-CW position that Hezbollah, and to a lesser extent Iran, is worse off than at the start of the latest conflict, here are three assessments, different from each other but all suggesting that the conventional wisdom is not true.

From Social Affairs Unit.

Hezbollah have suffered a setback (but are too clever to admit it) and the Israelis have scored a long-term success (but are too narrow-minded to realise it) - argues Brendan Simms

From Charles Krauthammer

Nasrallah's admission, vastly underplayed in the West, makes clear what the Lebanese already knew. Hezbollah may have won the propaganda war, but on the ground it lost. Badly.

And from tigerhawk.

Now, I agree that the result of the recent war was disappointing if measured against the expectation that Israel would pound Hezbollah into ash from which even a phoenix could not revive. Measured against a more realistic standard -- geopolitical progress against the last potent enemy on its border -- Israel may well have improved its position.