I am going to state the obvious. Israel lost its war. Hezbollah won. And by allowing the violence to continue for as long as it did, Bush killed thousands of innocent Lebanese. And the American voters reelected Bush because they thought he was doing such a great job on foreign affairs. The delusional is no longer marginal. The greatest threat facing this country is not Iraq or terrorism, it is the stupidity of the American voter.
What came out of this war? Israel lost its first war in decades. The result was that Israel now is no longer viewed as the indestructible giant that it was just a couple of months ago. The memory of Israel defeating the entire Arab world in just 6 days lasted for 40 years. Now that memory is gone. Israel is now viewed by the Arab (and entire) world as weak and beatable. This image may last another 40 years. It was the superpower of the region. Now they are a step away from begging the Arabs not to attack them anymore.
Hezbollah won, absolutely. All Hezbollah had to do to win was survive. It did more than that. And now, it is stronger and more popular than ever. Much as Bin Laden could never have dreamed of a gift as great as the war in Iraq, Hezbollah could never have dreamed of a gift this great. Few people outside of the US and Israel view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Now, much as Bin laden and Al Queada have become legends, so has Hezbollah.
And why did all of this happen? Because we have a president who was an unemployed alcoholic until age 40, and who could not have located Lebanon on a map 7 years ago. The pro-Israel president, with his philo-Semitic Neocon chickenhawks, have supported Israel so much that they have done incalculable damage to Israel. And they have caused the deaths of thousands of innocent Lebanese and Israelis.
The republicans would view my views as anti-Semitic. Why? Because I A)don't think Israel is blameless for everything and B)because I think the best policy for Israel (an immediate cease fire as soon as the war broke out, a return to peace talks, and the US government acting as an impartial arbiter rather than as a shill for Israel) is not the one that comes first to your gut. Bush has wrecked Iraq, he has wrecked the US, he has wrecked the federal government. Now he has wrecked Israel, wrecked the rest of the middle east, and done an incalculable service to Hezbollah. And people thought he was doing such a great job on terrorism.