Sadly, I couldn’t agree more.

Lebanon Cease-Fire Is a Victory for Hezbollah

Irvine, CA–”The cease-fire is a resounding victory for Hezbollah and for Islamic fascism,” said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.

“How can President Bush declare that ‘Hezbollah suffered a defeat’ in Lebanon when it was neither disarmed nor disheartened by the fighting? How can President Bush declare that the resolution addresses the ‘root cause’ of Hezbollah’s aggression when it does not even mention Iran and Syria for their support of Hezbollah and other terrorist groups?

“A U.N. resolution calling for the disarming of Hezbollah in Lebanon is not the same thing as the actual disarming of Hezbollah in Lebanon–let alone the defeat of Hezbollah throughout the Middle East. And by urging Israel to end its military offensive, the administration has ended any possibility that Hezbollah will actually be destroyed.

“The only way to end the threat from Islamic totalitarian groups like Hezbollah and their state sponsors is to inflict crushing devastation upon them by aggressive military action.”

Copyright (c) 2006 Ayn Rand(R) Institute. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Without a doubt, any supposed military victory in which the enemy is also capable of declaring victory to the world is no victory at all.

I have only vague ideas about how elections work in parliamentary systems, so can someone tell me when I might hope to see that spineless swine of appeasement Ehud Olmert booted out of office? And are the Israelis in a mood to vote in someone who might at least slow rather than hasten the destruction of their country?

Sadly, this aborted war in Lebanon is a perfect example of why fighting half a war is often worse than fighting none at all. If Israel hadn’t invaded Lebanon, Hezbollah and other Islamic fundamentalists would have continued to wonder: When will Israel rain down fire and brimstone upon us? How awful will it be? Will we all be destroyed? Will the United States support them, join them — or urge restraint?

In contrast, now Hezbollah and other Islamic fundamentalists know that they can survive an onslaught from Israel. They know that the surrounding Muslim governments will support them rather than fight them or cut them off. They know that Muslims will rally to their cause, not disown them. They know that Western governments, including the United States, will urge restraint, diplomacy, cease-fires, and the like. They know that Western news media will be a conduit for their propaganda. They know that Western intellectuals will be wringing their hands over the deaths of civilians — and blaming Israel for those deaths.

How do Hezbollah and other Islamic fundamentalists know all that? They know all that because that spineless swine of appeasement Ehud Olmert chose to fight a war yet refused to win it.

At this point, I fear that the Muslim world would need to experience all the horror of overwhelming shows of force in multiple hot spots to even consider abandoning the jihad against civilization. The West has shown too much weakness for the jihadists to be easily convinced of any new-found determination to crush Islamic totalitarianism that the West might exhibit. That’ll be the true legacy of decades of appeasement: the mass destruction required to destroy the threat of Islamic totalitarianism. It’s a horrifying prospect.

Even worse, it’s a moot point at present: I have little hope of any Western power rediscovering the moral courage required to defend itself from the barbarians at the gates — at least not until Objectivism gains a greater foothold in the culture.