Word: hizballah
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...Despite the civilian toll, Israel has not yet achieved the battlefield objectives sought by the Bush Administration: After two weeks of bombardment, Hizballah has lost neither its ability nor its will to fight on. It continues to rain down rockets on Israel, and the tenacity of its guerrilla fighters in engagement with elite Israeli infantry units has made clear that neutralizing it as a fighting force in southern Lebanon would require the sort of massive ground invasion that Israel wants to avoid, because bitter experience has taught it that getting out is infinitely more difficult than going...
...Washington's reluctance to press for a cease-fire has been based on the hope that the Israeli military campaign could batter Hizballah to the point that it would agree to surrender its independent military capability. Not only would such an achievement reassert Israel's power of deterrence, but it would also weaken Iran's. One of the cautionary notes against a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities had been the probability that Tehran's retaliation would include a massive missile attack on Israel by its Hizballah proxy...
...Washington has therefore insisted that there can be no going back to the status quo of three weeks ago, and that any truce must eliminate any ability for Hizballah to threaten Israel's northern border. Because Washington lacks engagement with the only regional players able to restrain Hizballah - Syria and Iran - Washington's prime leverage against the organization has been the Israeli military campaign...
...Hizballah continues to fight, and the Israeli bombardment appears to have actually strengthened it politically. Instead of the Lebanese backlash against Hizballah anticipated by Israel, the opposite has occurred - a survey of opinion across all communities last week found that upward of 70% of Lebanese backed the movement's original decision to seize two Israeli soldiers, the action that provoked the Israeli campaign...
...Lebanese government wants an immediate cease-fire, with the longer-term agreements aimed at ending hostilities to follow. And it envisages a process based on Hizballah's consent - the movement would agree to disarm not as an act of surrender, but because Israel has agreed to settle the outstanding disputes with Lebanon over owndership of the Shebaa Farms area and the fate of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails. The Qana killings will likely increase Hizballah's influence over the position of the Lebanese government: The two Lebanese officials with whom Secretary Rice met last week - Prime Minister Fuad Siniora...