I suggest to you possibility D (with a nod to Rick Ballard’s C option). Perhaps Olmert recognized that Hezbollah had six years to prepare the battle field and he didn’t want to send a masssive force into a meat grinder before making counter-preparations.

I’m not saying this is the case. I’m not in a position to. All I’m saying is that there are many reasons why this war is taking longer than supporters of Israel would like.

The most likely outcome is that Hezbollah will be destroyed, and southern Lebanon will be demilitarized one way or another – even by depopulating it if necessary. For now, the time frame over which this is taking place seems long. But if the outcome that I expect is achieved, it won’t matter if it took six weeks or six months. It will be another essential strategic victory for Israel.

and great courage in the latter from the US

Don’t bother looking for any courage from the Democrats:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneblog/archives/060804/republicans_mor.htm

For the moment, the Establishment Democrats are mouthing the right words in support of Israel. But the base of the party overwhelmingly anti-Israel. And as the last few years have shown, they don’t have the courage to stand up to the base in the long term. Just as they didn’t with respect to the Iraq war when a majority of Democratic Senators voted in favor and then immediately began undermining the war before the legislative ink dried.

Let’s state the truth. There is a constiuency in the far left of the Democratic party that is virulently anti-Semitic. If you don’t believe me, just attend a “peace” protest. They don’t want peace. They just want Jews to march into the sea without resistance. Their idea of “peace” is the destruction of Israel. This is the base of the party. It is passionate, organized and well-financed. And the Establishment Democrats in Washington will crumble beneath it.

-Mark Razak

Mark -

as the tension ratched up in the last week or so,
one blogger posted several images on his website,
one of which shook me to my bones.

it was a picture of a gymnasium’s worth
of naked Jews lying face down in a field.

most of them already dead.

in the photo,a fully uniformed SS officer
is shown shooting a wounded woman who is attempting to pick herself up.

and Amedinejad coyly cries
“what Holocaust?”.

All of the noises showing on all the media channels could very well be a smoke screen of a disinformation war in progress because if we can see CNN reporters safely reporting at the IDF’s firing range but never once at the Hez’s opoerational center, why not using the useful idiots to broadcast the “intended” news?

Once energy produced plans has been targetted to force the Hez to use their generators hence revealing their EMF signatures, the supply roads to be severed as it has happened couple days ago, the battle field is starting taken shape and will be intense. All the peace talks, cease fire are just creating more undecision and confusion while the battle drum’s tempo is more intense and increased.

I just could not fathom the noise Olmert generated about West Bank’s disengagement when the war is going on, hence my reservation that there is a chance Olmert and his leftist liberal cabinet is squandering their golden opportunity. If I’m a Hez commander planning to take my fighting force to fight the Israelis, I’m probably more concern about something making no sense like that to glimpse through the smoke screen, than the fact the whole Israelis Army literally taking a picnic at the border while their politicians debating of their decisions, for the mistake I took could mean the total destruction of my fighting force.

The conventional wisdom is that Isreal has to act quickly in any conflict, becuase the media will inevitably be prejudiced and whip up a storm of criticism. Once the tide of public of opinion inevitably turns against it, the “international community” will “make Israel stop.”

But how? Suppose French public opinion turns against Isreal. How, exactly, can the French “make Isreal stop?”

I don’t see how they can. And that’s France we’re talking about, a country that still has not-inconsiderable economic, diplomatic, military resources. Compared to France, who cars what the El Salvador’s Ambassador to the UN thinks?

The only country that can really make the Isarelis stop is the US. But we’re not making them stop. Israel is free to do what it has to do, public criticism be damned, no?

Moreover, people need to understand that Lebanon has been complicit, whether willingly or no, in Hezbollah’s actions by being unable and unwilling to stop Hezbollah from using Lebanese territory as a base of operations. The situation is similar to that of the taliban and al qaeda. When you are the government of a state you have an international responsibility for things that occur within your borders. If you cannot stop groups within your state from making war with other states and you are unwilling to seek outside help in righting such a situation then you are effectively sponsoring that group’s war efforts (by giving them the cover of your state’s “sovereignty”).

It may be easy to take pity on the Lebanese because they are so apparently modern, have been faced with a very sticky situation, and have been victimized by the recent war. But they still bear much of the responsibility for this war. The same as the Germans who stood by while Hitler came to power, or the Russians who stood by while Stalin assembled the Soviet empire. The Lebanese tried to ignore the problem of Hezbollah (partly because they did not care overly much about the injury Hezbollah might do to Israelis) and preferred to spend their time building condos and partying in clubs. All the while the hard work of making Lebanon a real state was going undone. And now both they and Israel are paying the price for that.

Israelís air force has knocked out all the major roads. Iran is going to find it virtually impossible to adequately supply Hezbollah. Israel may have made a few mistakes early on in the conflict—but it is now kicking some serious butt. Arabs are doomed to lose wars because of their backward cultural values.