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August 16, 2006

Who Won the War?

It's interesting to see who is going to win this latest Lebanese conflict. To me its another case of the big super power, in this case Israel, winning, but losing at the same time and another example of where we have:

1. They don't hate us for who we are, but for some very real bad things that have happened. Notably, lots of innocent folks have died or lost their homes
2. They don't love the Hezzbolah because they want to be martyrs irrationally, but because the organization works and provides an alternative for a government that is either a dictatorship (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt) or inept (Lebanon, PLO)
3. They get their money from "us". Oil is the real center of gravity of the Middle East.

As stunned Lebanese returned Tuesday over broken roads to shattered apartments in the south, it increasingly seemed that the beneficiary of the destruction was most likely to be Hezbollah. A major reason — in addition to its hard-won reputation as the only Arab force that fought Israel to a standstill — is that it is already dominating the efforts to rebuild with a torrent of money from oil-rich Iran. Hezbollah’s reputation as an efficient grass-roots social service network — as opposed to the Lebanese government, regarded by many here as sleek men in suits doing well — was in evidence everywhere. Young men with walkie-talkies and clipboards were in the battered Shiite neighborhoods on the southern edge of Bint Jbail, taking notes on the extent of the damage.

Posted by rich at August 16, 2006 02:40 AM

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