Dean's World

Edward Luttwak has a fascinating essay that argues, startlingly, that last year's war with Hezbollah wasn't the disaster it's been made out to be. He starts with some fascinating history:

In the immediate aftermath of the 1973 October War there was much joy in the Arab world. The myth of Israeli invincibility had been shattered by the surprise Egyptian crossing of the Suez Canal and the Syrian offensive that swept across the Golan Heights. In Israel, there was harsh criticism of political and military chiefs alike, who were blamed for the loss of close to 3,000 soldiers in a war that ended without a clear victory. Prime Minister Golda Meir, Defence Minister Moshe Dayan, the Chief of Staff David Elazar and the chief of military intelligence were all discredited and soon replaced.

It was only later that a sense of proportion was regained, ironically by the Egyptian and Syrian leaders before anyone else.

Then he does a pretty surprisingly good job of comparing that 1973 conflict (which everyone now agrees was a decisive and positive moment in Israeli history) to the current situation, and concludes:

For that very reason, the outcome of the war is likely to be viewed in the long term as more satisfactory than many now seem to believe it. Nasrallah is not another Arafat, who was fighting for eternal Palestine rather than the present generation of Palestinians (whose prosperity and safety he was always willing to sacrifice for the cause). Nasrallah has a political constituency, and it happens to be centered in southern Lebanon. Implicitly accepting responsibility for having started the war, Nasrallah has directed his Hezbollah to focus on rapid reconstruction in villages and towns, right up to the Israeli border. He cannot start another round of fighting because that would destroy everything again. Yet another unexpected result of the war is that Nasrallah's power-base in southern Lebanon is now a hostage to Hezbollah's good behaviour.

But you should read the whole thing.