Move over Pyrrhus

So George – you know the one; lies, muddles words, and makes a Hereford cow look clever – is stridently claiming victory in Lebanon for his henchmen, the Israelis. Doesn't he know that no amount of wishing makes unpleasant truths go away?

The Israelis succeeded in driving away friends and supporters they had relied upon for years. No need to quote numbers here, the reaction around the world says it all.

Hezbollah increased its own ranks of friends and supporters in even greater proportion. Even non- Shiite Lebanese are grudgingly supportive – and the Arab world has found their first heroes since 1949.

The Israeli Army proved incapable of defeating the Jihadists. When it came down to man against man, they proved – once more, for Crissake – that morale and determination count for more than smart weapons.

Far from being destroyed, Hezbollah is the first force into the destroyed areas helping the civilian population rebuild. Disarm them? Who is going to have the guts?

Once again, the U.S. axis has demonstrated that hi-tech weaponry and massive aerial bombardment only makes their enemies more resolute and more intransigent. Shock and Awe lasts for hours – anger and hate last for millennia.

The purchase of airforce jets looks more and more like a losing proposition when their every action results in losing the important PR contest. "What did you do in the war, Daddy?" "I bombed Lebanese civilians, dear." Didn't these arrogant Israelis ever hear of Guernica?

The Israeli Army found their hugely expensive Merkava tanks could only usefully serve as ambulances. Wait till the U.S. Forces in Iraq learn the same thing about the Abrams when the civil war there really heats up. Pity it doesn't have the compartment capable of carrying stretchers.

An eye opener for America's friends in the region who have imagined that U.S. promises of support meant something. The Americans' client government in Beirut was assured it had the support of the U.S. when it took over from the Syrian backed regime. Where did it go when the Israelis turned on them? Hello Riyadh. Hello Amman. Hello Cairo. Hello Baghdad. Are you reading me?

Some readers may be discounting my words as those of some fanatical supporter of extremist Islam. Not me. I worked in an Arab country for more than four years, and the intimate contact with their mule-like orneryness made me an ardent supporter of Israel in 1967, and 1973. I long to see the Jihadists lose their resolve and their fanaticism, but the Cheney/Bush regime is the least likely administration in the whole world able to bring that about. George, Dick, and Rummy and their policies have to be worth more than half a dozen armored divisions – to Al-Qaida.