Politics: The Other War in the Middle East

The New York Times has an informative before and after graphic of what Israeli airstrikes and artillery have done in Lebanon.

This Arab Times piece is equally interesting. It notes that Lebanon is a proxy war between the US/Israel and Iran/Syria.

In a message to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, Chairman of Iran’s Expediency Council Akbar Rafsanjani has expressed his country’s support to Saudi Arabia’s proposal for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. This indicates Tehran has started worrying it may lose the war and wants to retreat.

There are calls for a ceasefire. Isreal might be wise to ignore them. The fighting is hard, Hezbollah is very well trained. But ultimately it is the Israelis who are kicking ass and making corpses.

Hezbollah's internal organization has been deeply disrupted. Most of their local support has fled, probably because they have a policy of making their supporters into targets.

Were I an Israeli leader, I wouldn't accept a cease fire under these conditions. Hezbollah would only use a cease fire as a way to restructure, regroup, and rebuild. If they want to stop fighting, I would accept their surrender under fair terms. That is it.

All this via several posts at Instapundit.