Israel and Lebanon Continued
Daniel Pipes, Middle East expert has his own views on the cause of the current crisis. He is particularly harsh on Israel.

By 1993, this record of success imbued Israelis with a sense of overconfidence. They concluded they had won, and ignored the inconvenient fact that Palestinian Arabs and other enemies had not given up their goal of eliminating Israel. Two emotions long held in check, fatigue and hubris, came flooding out. Deciding that they had had enough of war and could end the war on their own terms, Israelis experimented with such exotica as "the peace process" and "disengagement." They permitted their enemies to create a quasi-governmental structure (the "Palestinian Authority") and to amass hoards of armaments (Hezbollah's nearly 12,000 Katyusha rockets in southern Lebanon, according to the Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat). They shamelessly traded captured terrorists for hostages.

In essence, he berates Israel for listening to the International community. His solution is obvious, ignore the pitiful cries of the international community

To undo this damage of 13 years requires that Israel return to the slow, hard, expensive, frustrating, and boring work of deterrence. That means renouncing the foolish plans of compromise, the dreamy hopes for good will, the irresponsibility of releasing terrorists, the self-indulgence of weariness, and the idiocy of unilateral withdrawal.

Frontpage Mag has an article about how many Lebanese around the world are cheering for Israel to do the thing that Lebanon can't...drive Hezbollah out. A statement from the interntational Lebanese Foundation for Peace comments

We urge you to hit them hard and destroy their terror infrastructure. It is not [only] Israel who is fed up with this situation, but the majority of the silent Lebanese in Lebanon who are fed up with Hezbollah and are powerless to do anything out of fear of terror retaliation.

The article also has details of the problems with power that the Lebanese government has

The Lebanese army has less than 10,000 military troops. Hezbollah has over 4,000 trained militia forces and there are approximately 700 Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. So why can't the army do the job? Because the majority of Lebanese Muslims making up the army will split and unite along religious lines with the Islamic forces just like what happened in 1976 at the start of the Lebanese civil war.

Of course, Syria said the Lebanese military was ready to take over and that was why they left. In reality, Syria left the Lebanese military weak enough so that their allies, Hezbollah could continue to operate.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Thursday, July 20, 2006