From news reports Hezbollah is well armed with anti-tank missiles as well as long range missiles, admittedly supplied by Iran and probably with Syrian assistance. And yet Hezbollah is still getting pounded into the ground. The first link above has a quote from a military expert which sums it up well:

“To the best of my understanding, they (Hezbollah) are as well-equipped as any standing unit in the Syrian or Iranian armies,” said Eran Lerman, a retired army colonel and now director of the Israel/Middle East office of the American Jewish Committee. “This is not a rat-pack guerrilla, this is an organized militia.”

So what should we make of all this? We know the leftwing handwringers are probably in near panic to realize the West is in a real fight for survival. What is clear is anti-tank missiles have moved across borders and can do a llot of damage to buildings, bridges, sports arenas, etc. Long range missiles can do a lot of damage to civilian centers as we have seen in the north of Israel. So do we capitulate? Do we enter into a useless diplomatic word game as so that resupply efforts can get by our intelligence efforts like they clearly did already?

If Hezbollah is as well armed and trained as the Syrian and Iranian militaries, then maybe we have been overestimating the ability of these nations while we underestimated Hezbollah. Syria is looking especially vulnerable since their military has not been in a fight for decades and therefore is not battle hardened. In fact, I would wager Syrian and Iranian elements are inside the Hezbollah units right now. One thing is for sure. As this battle rages on, those who fear confrontation at all costs get shriller as we saw in Qana. But those who are not afraid of confrontation in self defense are watching how the last bastions of Islamo Fascism in the Middle East are looking like less and less of a force to deal with. As long as the other side doesn’t get a nuclear weapon.

And that is what the handwringing media has lost site of. This conflict was started because Iran was willing to start a regional war to hold onto their hopes for nuclear power and possible state-initiated martyrdom. The Mad Mullah’s and that Hitler-esque President Ahmadinajed are just the kind of sicko screwballs who would love to die reigning nukes down on Israel, as well as Baghdad-Iraq, Kabul-Afghanistan and Islamabad- Pakistan. So we are still facing the same problem, with more detail added since the fighting started.

That detail includes the clear fact there are many more kinds of conventional arms dispersed to Hezbollah that are useful for attacking civilian targets. That Hezbollah will fight to the death and their desired martyrdom. That Hezbollah has no moral qualms about using civilians as shields and propaganda props (preferrably dead children). And that Iran is willing to go to great lengths to hold onto their nuclear dreams. These conclusions are only hard to grasp for those desparate to cling to some fantasy about the evil the West causes in the good and decent hearts of the Islamo Fascists.

The wild card in all this is the moderate Arab States, which have a lot of military capabilities of their own and everything to lose. A nuclear Iran will make these states slaves to Tehran just as the neighboring countries to the Soviet Union were slaves to Moscow. Never lose sight of the fact Iran is a Persian country – not Arab. So when I see Arab leaders lashing out at Hezbollah I wonder how much of that message is meant for Syria and Iran. A one time inspirational leader for Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden is now lashing out at Hezbollah for some reason:

A top Saudi Sunni cleric, whose ideas inspired Osama bin Laden, issued a religious edict Saturday disavowing the Shi’ite guerrilla group Hizbullah, evidence that a rift remained among Muslims over the fighting in Lebanon.

Hizbullah, which translates as “the party of God,” is actually “the party of the devil,” said Sheik Safar al-Hawali, whose radical views made the al-Qaida leader one of his followers in the past.

“Don’t pray for Hizbullah,” he said in the fatwa posted on his Web site.

The edict, which reflects the historical stand of strict Wahhabi doctrine viewing Shi’ite Muslims as heretics, follows a similar fatwa from another popular Saudi cleric Sheik Abdullah bin Jibreen two weeks into the conflict with Israel.

Wars create stress fractures in the alliances and political infrastructures on both sides of the conflict. While the West has their handwringers and exaggerators in the news media, the Muslim side has numerous stress points running through it. From Shia-Sunni split to the Arab-Muslim split to the Moderate-Fascist split, these stress fractures are beginning to show strain as democracies are standing up and Hezbollah brings down a reign of destruction on Lebanon in a mindless, useless conflict. I for one am not surprised Iran is now pushing with all their might to scare the handwringers in the West to the point we halt our efforts before we terminally cripple the Islamo Fascist dreams of a nuclear armed radical sect. I am not sure a cease fire is the right anwers, unless it clears Lebanon so we can refocus our efforts on Iran and Syria. If that happens, then great. We have pushed the radicals from one more geographic area and into an ever shrinking haven of operation.