Nasarallah’s Blunder: Lebanese Turn on Hez Chief

Amir Taheri once again provides insightful analysis of the Israeli-Hezbollah war. In his latest article, he asks the question,

Why did Nasrallah decide to change his unqualified claim of victory into an indirect admission of defeat? Two reasons.

The first consists of facts on the ground: Hezbollah lost some 500 of its fighters, almost a quarter of its elite fighting force. Their families are now hounding Nasrallah to provide an explanation for "miscalculations" that led to their death.

He expounds on this point by stating that Hezbollah fighters were only aware of the war once Israeli jets begin their bombing resulting in the loss of most of Hezbollah’s medium range missiles and the capture of local leaders and Hezbollah militia by the Israelis.

The second reason why Nasrallah has had to backtrack on his victory claims is the failure of his propaganda machine to hoodwink the Lebanese. He is coming under growing criticism from every part of the political spectrum, including the Hezbollah itself.

He further justifies this point by citing the cancellation of a series of victory marches on the advice of Shi’ite leadership who are instead holding mourning ceremonies, his monetary payouts is being seen as blood money, and as people go back to their villages they are seeing the utter destruction unleashed by Hezbollah’s ill-conceived kidnappings.

Finally, Amir Taheri points again to the fact that Hezbollah was only able to secure 12 of 128 seats in the National Assembly through coalitions which have disintegrated since the war.

Israel failed in this war by not crushing Hezbollah when it had the chance, but by no means did Hezbollah come out victorious. Mr. Bolton’s skillful wording of UN Resolution 1701 and Israel’s successful post-war diplomacy has the UN’s back against a wall to either support Israel, allow the war to restart, or show the powerlessness of the UN.

Kofi Annan for his part will not let the later two happen and therefore has no choice but to try his best to uphold UN Resolution 1701 less he have another failure on his watch.