Greg Djerejian clears his throat to point out that, contrary to what some hawks seem to believe, people in Lebanon don’t actually like being bombed. More to the point, the Lebanese government is genuinely worried that all this death and destruction will only increase popular support for Hezbollah, both within Lebanon and without, thereby making everyone’s life a little more unpleasant. Indeed, most Arabs across the Middle East—even our pro-democracy friends—are blaming Israel, rather than Hezbollah and Hamas, for the violence (with the curious exception of the House of Saud).
Now I’m willing to believe that Israel can probably achieve most of what appear to be its main military objectives in this offensive—namely, to push Hezbollah away from the border, degrade the militia’s missile-launching infrastructure, and reduce the group to a guerrilla army once again—but that doesn’t mean there won’t be serious unexpected consequences to deal with afterwards.
