Israel learned the lesson quickly and has refrained over the years from taking actions that claimed more than a certain number of casualties and refried from killing the heads of the organization in order to prevent the Hizbullah from responding abroad.

But that wasn't enough. The Hizbullah also succeeded in deterring Israel from carrying out routine operations against it by creating a dangerous and unjust equivalency in which any Israeli action that harmed Lebanese civilians, even if it was by chance or to a minor extent, would be followed by a rain of Katyusha rockets on Israeli civilian sites.

The result was that Israeli responses to Hizbullah attacks in many cases were no more than words and posing. They were actions that were aimed more at satisfying Israeli domestic demands than to cause real damage to the Hizbullah's operational ability, such as IAF attacks on abandoned Hizbullah bases. These were part of the military rules of the game and it was clear to every pupil that Israel would demand, sooner or later, that they be changed.

Our take home message here is that appeasing the Islamists never, repeat - never, serves the interests of free and democratic societies. As you read this, Iran is playing the West like a chess game (remember - they invented it), using Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, and other similar groups, as chess pieces, and the end game for Iran is to have the West otherwise occupied long enough to complete its development of nuclear weapons. For Iran, that's the begining of the end for the West. For the West, it will the end of civilization as we know it. As Belman so aptly points out in his commentary, making deals with terrorists [and a ceasefire is a deal to allow the islamists time to gain a superior advantage (al-taqiyya)] undermines the deterrance and undermines the goal of a ustainable peace. Israel and the U.S. should offer no quarter, no ceasefires. There should be war until there is complete surrender. The terrorists should not come out with any gain. They must be defeated - all of them. Although Belman suggests that nothing short of a peace agreement with Lebanon should be the goal, I believe that the goal needs to be broader - agreement by Iran and Syria to stay out of Lebanon's affairs. However, Belman's suggestion that In no event should Syria or Iran be talked to so long as talking means offering concessions for cooperation is right on target. Doing otherwise would only empower them. Our talking should be limited to making threats and issuing ultimatums, as Belman suggests.

It is absolutely imperative that the West join as one voice and change the rules of order for dealing with militant Islam. We need a new agenda, and the agenda must be less talk, and much more action.