...of Israel's war last summer against Hezbollah:

When war erupted in summer 2006, Israel enjoyed overwhelming military superiority and favorable political conditions. However, its strategic follies and operational deficiencies resulted in a faltering, indecisive war. The Israeli military could have administered a serious blow to Hezbollah from the air during the first few days of the war or, alternatively, destroyed most of Hezbollah's military presence in southern Lebanon with a large land invasion. Unfortunately, Israel's political and military leadership had no clear concept of what victory over Hezbollah entailed.

Israel squandered an important opportunity to settle regional scores. It left unchecked Iran's apparent efforts to expand Shi‘i influence in Lebanon and left untouched Syria's potential for mischief in Lebanon. Hezbollah's resilience against the Israeli bombardment emboldened it to withstand future Israeli assaults, and Israel's failure to succeed emboldened regional radicals.

Israel is a strong state, but it can ill-afford such failure. It lives in a dangerous neighborhood in which military might is the guarantee for survival. Halutz has initiated an intensive and comprehensive inquiry process and resigned. In the past, the IDF has proved its capacity to learn from its mistakes and improve. Some deficiencies can be easily corrected. Increases in the defense budget could provide the means to implement some lessons learned, for example, longer training for reserve units and procurement of better weapon systems. Less easy to correct are deficiencies in strategic thinking.

Post-modern notions have blurred the strategic clarity of Israel's political leadership and its defense and foreign affairs establishment. The economic cost of building a strong military force may be high, but it is not an optional expense. Too often, wishful thinking supplants reality.

Let's hope they've taken some lessons, because with the connivance of Syria and Iran (as last time) a repeat performance is unfortunately not far off.

Victory entails convincing the Lebonese government and people to police these criminals who keep on firing rockets at their cities. Peaceful negotiations for five years didn't do squat. Israel made the next logical step and decided to randomly bomb a small number of military and civilian targets until it was very clearly communicated HOW VERY INCREDIBLY PISSED OFF THEY WERE.

The Israeli military could have administered a serious blow to Hezbollah from the air during the first few days of the war or, alternatively, destroyed most of Hezbollah's military presence in southern Lebanon with a large land invasion. Unfortunately, Israel's political and military leadership had no clear concept of what victory over Hezbollah entailed.

Yeah, if they wanted to indesciminantly slaughter a couple hundred thousand civilians, they most certainly could have done that. I think we can safely assume though that if there were other other options, Jews of all people would have a problem with that.

Building a stable Lebanon with an effective civilian government is the best route to disarming Hezbollah. Israel's IDF can win military conflicts with Islamist militias but Israel and the West won't be safe until moderate Arab governments can win the peace.