Vel - If you want a good laugh, here's a follow up to the story you broke here yesterday (Afghani swimmer):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1684126/posts
Godzilla Observations
This is the final for this series. If things start to go down hill again, I'll be back on. Surprisingly, the cease fire is actually holding. This points to the fact that the military wing of Hezbollah has become a semi-professional force with a command and control structure capable of keeping control. Unless IDF gets aggressive about stopping Hezbollah reinforcements, removing stored munitions, etc, I now expect things to be relatively calm.
Some think that Hamas will be able to duplicate Hezbollah’s success. First off, the don’t have the discipline seen in Hezbollah. Secondly, they don’t have the abundant munitions and sophisticated training necessary to operate those items. Thirdly, they don’t have a good bunker system established. And finally, they are still at odds with the PA over who actually leads.
Iran continues to beat its chest at how successful they were for their part in training and equipping Hezbollah. Grudgingly they have a right to be, they forced Israel to fight the war on their terms and held their own.
Chief of Staff Dan Halutz is now facing scrutiny regarding not only his ability to lead the IDF, but his integrity regarding finances. He will eventually have to step down or he will be forced out.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is also facing fire for his (mis)handling of the war. Reservists coming out of Lebanon are furious over how they were jerked around and the overall organizational support (to say the least). However, the political sharks are smelling blood, and once things are stabilized to the north, Olmert will likely get hammered hard and forced out. As one put it “Olmert is Israel’s John Kerry”.
Israel’s inability to shut down Hezbollah has emboldened Syria’s Assad to look to military means to regain the Golan Heights. Thus the inability to deal with one crisis has allowed it to grow. However, I don’t expect Syria to do anything just yet as his army is no where near capable of starting anything because of outdated and broken equipment and the tactics for a conventional offensive campaign are significantly different than those successfully employed by Hezbollah. The only way Syria would be successful would be an attack following a MAJOR WMD strategic strike against Israel, where they could take advantage of the disorder and chaos created. The fact that Syria has remove their landmines is a clear indicator that they have an offensive in mind, and August 22 is not too far off.