Hizbollah: You Won the Battle but Lost the War

It is easy for the losing side to often mutter the line, "you [the victor] won the battle, but lost the war", however after the 3 day bloodletting which resulted in 18 killed, al Mustaqbal TV/Newspaper offices being burnt to the ground, and most of West Beirut coming under the control of Amal and Hizbollah forces this adage is becoming increasingly true.

Finally, following their coup attempt, Hizbollah can be declared a full fledged militia. All of the commentators who would always try to insert a, "of all things Hizbollah wants to prevent a Sunni-Shia war" have now been proven wrong, and then some. Hizbollah has backed itself into a wall, either a real shooting war will start or one side will have to back down. The Sunnis under Hariri and Druze under Walid Jumblatt played an interesting yet realistic card. Their small less developed militias engaged in what could be termed a moribund defense of West Beirut, they knew they would lose. Hizbollah used its special units and masses of supporters to open it's way to occupy the Western part of the city, this in turn will help the March 14th coalition maintain a position in the moral high ground.

Politically this move can have many upsides. For starters, March 14th was by all accounts on the defense vs. stronger more well equipped forces: In essence the legitimately elected government fighting pro-Syrian militias who refused to negotiate an end to the political deadlock. Of course, West Beirut still smolders and has now entered into a new era (who knows how long this will last?) of Hizbollah occupation. Nonetheless in the PR battle, March 14th won out, they stood by their democratic credentials and instead of relying on party militias they looked to the army to be their defenders. Of course the army didn't step in (they fear a sectarian split up like what happened in '76, '84, and again in '89), I will fault the army for this, they are a govt. institution and essentially sat around as West Beirut 2008 turned into West Beirut 1985. As my friend has as his MSN nickname, "Neutrality is not watching a crime silently."

There is a complete downside to this: All out war. What then? I have spoken to my Lebanese friends almost constantly since the events started to get out of hand. The Christians think they need to re-arm. Personally, I can't blame them, but even they don't have the training, battle readiness or a good supply of ammunition as Hizbollah does. As I stated above, March 14th won the major PR and fact based victory, aka Hizbollah is a militia, it has no respect for the authority of Lebanese government, and pro-Syrian factions will do anything (save actually working with the government) to regain power. This was a coup! However, a realist could look at this and say, "Hizbollah has the boots on the ground, they have all the power." If they drive into E. Beirut and take out what could shape up to be a Christian/March 14th Muslim resistance, Syria will return to the country in full force---Goodbye Cedar Revolution!

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