The fear remaining is that Hezbollah will now be able to portray itself as having withstood an Israeli assault tolerably well. Commentators suggest that without a coup by the Israelis a battered and uprooted Hezbollah will become a legitimate force in Lebanese politics. Well, perhaps, but once the dust has settled on the rubble that Hezbollah invited, perhaps the Lebanese who were wary of Hezbollah to begin with will draw the proper conclusion. Terrorists who refuse to disarm and who fight as guerrillas from civilian neighborhoods are dangerous neighbors. In fact, the way they allowed Lebanese neighborhoods to be used, they are worse than dangerous neighbors. They are the enemies of democratic Lebanon.
From the war zone, the New York Sun's Eli Lake reports that Israeli psychological warfare has been clever and effective. On Hezbollah's Al-Manar television station Israeli intelligence wizards hack in with threatening messages of imminent death to the Hezbollah leadership and pictures of Israeli air strikes with the accompaniment of a voice saying, "There is no doubt that this is the strongest air force in the area. And we can't stand up against it."
Now the Israelis' goal is to continue to push Hezbollah back and to destroy the terrorists' infrastructure. A second goal is to instill the fear in prospective enemies that they cannot win. This will take a week or more, the military believes. A question that will remain unanswered for months is what Hezbollah's standing in the Middle East will be in the long run. One thing is clear: Israel has a very cool ally in the White House.