There's a new media trope out there that the Hezbo fanatics have won the Lebanon war ——— or are perceived to have won, which is the same thing, as far as the media are concerned. The New York Times, for example, claims this was a "battle of perception."

This is very convenient, because it allows the NYT to crown winners and losers. The media simply set impossibly high standards for Israel (can you wipe out an entrenched guerrilla force before the whistle blows?) and a very low standard for Hezbollah (can your PR front survive?).

This is glorified BS. If media "perception" won wars, Germany would be ruled by Hitler's heirs today, and Russia by Stalin's. They won the prize for PR, after all. Napoleon had such good PR flacks that he is still worshipped today by French politicians like Giscard and de Villepin. But at Moscow and Waterloo, reality had the last word.

It baffles the media, but war is not TV journalism. Nobody cares if your hair is messed up.

While Ahmadinejad has brought out the crowds to celebrate "Lebanon's victory" and Nasrallah is crowing to the press, ask yourself this: would you rather spend six weeks in a bomb shelter while Katyushas are falling at random, or be a Hezbo guerrilla targeted by high—tech IAF bombs? Because in the latter case, most likely you'd be dead.

Israel has never had a one—hundred percent record of success. Nobody does. The IDF does have the resilience and realism to fix its mistakes. A thorough examination of Israel's war effort is now under way. If it is done right, mistakes will be identified and corrected.

That is also one of the advantages of democracy ——— we can throw out the knaves and fools. Syria is stuck with Baby Assad. Iran has a very clever ruling clique, but it is so deeply mired in the Khomeini cult that Ahmadinejad can't stop himself from sounding just like Hitler. That is emphatically not a triumph of public relations. Even Europe has now been alerted to the true nature of the Tehran regime.

In the end, the only thing that matters is reality.

James Lewis 8 16 06