A minute later I ran across that statistic in print in this piece from the Jerusalem Post website that puts the results of the recent fighting in Lebanon in better perspective. I always point out I'm no military expert, but this has the ring of being right. The basic thesis is that after the 1973 war, everyone said Israel had lost, the myth of Israeli invincibility had been shattered, and the Egyptians and Syrians had shown they could fight. But as time passed, people --especially Anwar Sadat and Hafez Assad-- discerned otherwise. Likewise, as time passes, people will see that Israel hasn't been defeated here, either, and that Hezbollah forces didn't do so well. You should of course RTWT for all the war statistics that back up his thesis, but to skip to the conclusion:
Nasrallah has a political constituency, and it happens to be centered in southern Lebanon. Implicitly accepting responsibility for having started the war, Nasrallah has directed his Hizbullah to focus on rapid reconstruction in villages and towns, right up to the Israeli border.
He cannot start another round of fighting that would quickly destroy everything again. Yet another unexpected result of the war is that Nasrallah's power-base in southern Lebanon is more than ever a hostage for Hizbullah's good behavior.
