Bill Roggio, of the Counter—Terrorism Blog presents a sobering assessment of Hezbollah's military status. He concludes:

In just two weeks, Hezbollah has been fighting the Israeli military to an effective standstill on the ground (remember that time is not on Israel's side due to pressure to accept a cease fire). Not only is Hezbollah fighting at the platoon and company level, but fighting effectively during the initial engagements. al—Qaeda in Iraq (3 years of fighting) and the Taliban in Afghanistan (almost 5 years of fighting) have yet to reach such a level of effectiveness on the battlefield.

Iran has trained a proxy army that now sits on the border with Israeli, an army that cannot be dealt with from the air. If this problem is kicked down the road, Hezbollah will be that much more dangerous. And everything we think we know about Iran's conventional military capabilities needs to be rethought.

Richard Baehr   7 27 06