Losers

Early this morning the cease fire decided at the UN has put an end to the 6th Arab Israeli war, the one month long war in Lebanon.
Who won?
Nobody.
Who are the Losers?

Israel.
By far the biggest losers, they have demonstrated that their ultra performing army was unable to win an asymetric war against religious fanatics bent on their anihilation and ready for martyrdom.
Double losers, since they lost the moral high ground with world public opinion, in causing a very visisble carnage among Lebanese civilians.
Finally losers, because Hezbollah is still in Lebanon, but Olmert will lose his job and Israel will be ruled by Bibi Netanyahu, who will prepare the country for the 7th war.
Note that no TV station showed us Hezbollah fighters hiding behind women and children.

Lebanon.
Second largest losers, in people and property. Victim of a Syria that has never swallowed the humiliation of being kicked out unceremoniously last year. Dismembered because 1/3 of the population and the parliament are actually hezbollah and proponent of medieval Islam.

The USA
The US have lost big. According to Seymour Hersh in the latest issue of the New Yorker (08/14/06), the neocons, under Eliot Abrams of Contras fame, had pushed Israel to probe Hezbollah resistance, as a dry run and a prelude to an attack on Syria and Iran.
By delaying the peace, supplying weapons to Israel, and with Condi Rice losing face during her hapless trip to the Middle east, the USA have gratuitously angered the arab street. Result: Their champion Israel is humiliated, and hezbollah lives to fight another war, all the while revealing the enormous equipment and technology supplied by Tehran.

Europe.
Since the French referendum on the defunct EU constitution, the EU is limp. Its presence in the Middle east is moot. France had to cave in at the UN and won't even have a Chapter 7 right to enforce its mandate.

The world.
Is the world safer because Nasrallah can claim victory today? Is the world ready to accept the armed dictatorship of religious fanatics, who have never been elected, and impose their obscurantist superstitions on the rest of the world?
The French Resistance in WWII never intended to spread their ideology to the rest of the world, nor destroy the infidels.
In Washington, the neocons have already drawn the only conclusion from this sorry exercise: our champion, Israel,has not been able to prevail over a fanatic group, well armed and controlled by Iran. In trying to limit civilian deaths, they were too timid. Conclusion: The only way to eradicate the danger represented by Iran and Syria is to go all out and wipe them out with all our might.

The more I see it, the more we are in 1938.