Flip a coin.

Interesting links on whether Hezbollah or Israel is winning. I think Israel has the same advantages and liabilities as the U.S. They have superior weapons and personnel, but they're constrained by world opinion. I think that they've made mistakes in going too slow and with insufficient force, and they should NEVER apologize for civilian casualties when they're the result of Hezbollah's choice of hiding among the innocent. Those deaths are chargeable to Hezbollah and no one else. They're caused by violations of international law and the Geneva Conventions. That point needs to be made constantly and forcefully, to counter all the the griping from those who can only think in terms of more ceasefires.

I think that Israel can still win, but it will have to do more than fiddle while it waits for the U.N. or NATO to intervene. This war won't get any easier to win the longer we wait. You can bet that we're up against three layers: Hezbollah; Syria and Iran; and China, North Korea, Pakistan (possibly) and Russia who are selling technology to Syria and Iran. It's no surprise that Iran has made such big strides in missile tech. We basically neutered the CIA during the 1970s thanks to Frank Church, and it will only get worse if we get another Democrat administration. We can't afford to dither, yet that seems to be all we do. I think Bush's "arrogance" has saved a lot of lives, and made progress, but it's slow going, and public opinion gets eroded with time and bad media coverage.

I wish I could be as optimistic as Glenn Reynolds, but all the technology in the world won't save us from own weak character and foreign policy fiddling.