« Iran's Ties with ElBaradei | Main | Kidnapped Fox News Journalists Freed »
August 25, 2006
Is It 'Israel Won' Or 'Hezbollah Didn't Win' ?
Dean Barnett, writing at Hugh Hewitt today, points to a mini-onslaught of articles explaining how Israel won the war with Hezbollah:
Combined with the Debka analysis several of you sent me last week, the revisionist narrative shapes up this way:Continue reading "Israel Won?".Hezbollah was decimated; the Iranian Mullahs have domestic problems for frittering away resources on a war thousands of miles away while their own nation remains impoverished; Iran is furious at Hezbollah for blowing its entire Iranian supplied wad on this adventure; and the Lebanese street has had it up to here (my hand is at my forehead) with Hezbollah's destructive antics.
One of Barnett's links points to an Opinion Journal piece by Amir Taheri, titled "Hezbollah Didn't Win" that I believe goes far in explaining what is really going on, and has gone on, in the ME, and why here in the West - the Israeli-Hezbollah war in Lebanon looked so much like Hezbollah came out all roses.
Personally, I like to frame what many have perceived as a rosy outcome for Nasarallah and his band of terrorists as the result of what we all saw, read, and heard from the West's MSM; for lack of a better description, let's just call it agenda-driven reporting, and Taheri appears to agree:
The way much of the Western media tells the story, Hezbollah won a great victory against Israel and the U.S., healed the Sunni-Shiite rift, and boosted the Iranian mullahs' claim to leadership of the Muslim world. Portraits of Hassan Nasrallah, the junior mullah who leads the Lebanese branch of this pan-Shiite movement, have adorned magazine covers in the West, hammering in the message that this child of the Khomeinist revolution is the new hero of the mythical "Arab Street."Continue reading "Hezbollah Didn't Win."Probably because he watches a lot of CNN, Iran's "Supreme Guide," Ali Khamenei, also believes in "a divine victory." Last week he asked 205 members of his Islamic Majlis to send Mr. Nasrallah a message, congratulating him for his "wise and far-sighted leadership of the Ummah that produced the great victory in Lebanon."
By controlling the flow of information from Lebanon throughout the conflict, and help from all those who disagree with U.S. policies for different reasons, Hezbollah may have won the information war in the West. In Lebanon, the Middle East and the broader Muslim space, however, the picture is rather different.
So which is it? Did Israel win, did Hezbollah not win? or did Hezbollah come up roses? The answer isn't as complicated as you'd think.
The answer comes from Egyptian columnist Ali al-Ibrahim, quoted in Taheri's article:
"Hezbollah won the propaganda war because many in the West wanted it to win as a means of settling score with the United States - but the Arabs have become wise enough to know TV victory from real victory."If only the public in the West could be so wise!
On the other hand, does it matter who won or lost when the ceasefire is basically a hudna (a tactical cease-fire that allows the Arabs to rebuild their terrorist infrastructure in order to be more effective when the "cease-fire" is called off.") until Iran complete's it's preparations for the big one? Hell no!
Cross posted from Hyscience
Posted by Richard at August 25, 2006 12:41 PM
