Who Won? Hezbollah or Israel? Like the war, the opinion is divided on both sides of the fence and most are done without proper thinking and logic.
Both sides apparently cannot win the same war even in the minds of their own supporters. I can understand the parties themselves making such pronouncements to bolster their own morale but others?
Like the fog of war confuse soldiers and generals, the end of a conflict also brought along a roomful of armchair generals making premonitions and predictions. As they like to say Victory has many fathers.
What does it got to do with Malaysian Defence? Since it is a conflict, which is followed religiously in Malaysia, I believed we must study what had happened and draw the right conclusion.
Otherwise those who were killed in the conflict would have died for nothing.
So did the Hezbollah won? Yes and No. Did Israel win. Yes and No.
If anybody had won, it was a Phyric victory. Hezbollah had shown that it knew its strengths and fought the Israelis on their own terms.
Did it lose? If you count the destruction and deaths in Lebanon one is inclined to think so.
Some Arab commentators believed since it managed to destroy some Israeli tanks and fired thousands of rockets into Israel, it had won a great victory.
Tell that to those who are still mourning the deaths of their loved ones and counting their losses. And by the way contrary to the UKM don who was featured on TV3, Katyusha rockets used by Hezbollah are not modern weapons. These rockets were first used by the Soviets in early 30s and became the zenith in their Great Patriotic War (WWII to you and me).
It is still effective weapon system, well suited to Hezbollah strategic and tactical limitations. It is also crude enough for Hezbollah to tinker with them to increase its range although in this type of modifications, meant that the payload or explosives, had to be reduced.
One big limitation with unguided rockets like the Katyushas is that once the rocket motors burns out, it will rely on balistics alone, Once it lose lift, it will fall to the ground, hopefully with its fuses working correctly.
Based on the TV footages these rockets did not do much damage unless it hit people right in the open like what happened when one or two rockets hit a train yard in Haifa or a bus stop packed with Israeli waiting to get transport to the front.
Compare to the craters created by the 1000 pounders dropped in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon.
It is interesting to note that the Israelis were more concerned with the amount of modern anti-tank weapons, which were captured in their operations in southern Lebanon.
A number of Israeli Merkava MBT, modified APCs and armoured bulldozers were destroyed by these weapons, which included American-made TOW missiles.
What about Israeli then? During the 40-odd day conflict, it shows that it remained a military powerhouse with the US on its side.
Whether it can win a war of attrition is still debatable but unlike the previous decades, the Arab countries are even less military-minded. Unless they can get a staunch ally in both military and political circles, it is hard to imagine that the Arabs can overcome its thorn.
Who won then? As I said earlier, like other conflicts, the end result is murky. Only time will tell. It’s like Vietnam, the conventional thinking that US lost the war. But why is Vietnam turning towards market-oriented economy or capitalism?
At the moment, Lebanon Army for the first time almost 40 years had moved into southern :Lebanon.
If it consolidated its position in the area, Hezbollah will have to back away, probably even becoming a political party derived its armed wing.
That is what Israel wanted doesn’t it. Hmm, it looks like that it is not a Hezbollah victory after all.
Does that mean Israel won. Of course not, strategically, it has become more isolated.
It kept proclaiming its democratic credentials but the longer it continues with its eye for an eye policy, it would no longer could claim the moral high ground.
Come to think of it, on that ground both parties lost this conflict. Maybe we should think of other ways in winning wars, I believed in wars we should use battles to keep the scores and left it like that. Otherwise, we ourselves will be judged by history, for making too much assumptions.