"Lebanon will not become the next Gaza."

So writes Michael Totten--and he explains why:

Commenters both inside and outside the country compared Hezbollah's invasion of West Beirut last week to the Hamas takeover of Gaza last year, which is perhaps understandable: that's what it looked like. If Lebanon's mainstream Sunni-dominated party--Saad Hariri's Future Movement--has a militia that is able and willing to fight, it didn't make much of an appearance. Hezbollah seized the western half of the city in a walk. Most journalists focused on this portion of the conflict because West Beirut is where almost every journalist in Lebanon lives and where almost every hotel for visiting journalists is located.

Far less attention has been paid to Hezbollah's military and strategic failure in the Chouf mountains southeast of Beirut where Lebanon's Druze community lives. Hezbollah picked a major fight there and lost. After three days of pitched battles, its gunmen were unable to conquer a single village--even when they brought out mortars and heavy artillery.

...Hezbollah is a guerrilla army, not an occupation force. Counterinsurgency is not in its toolbox. Hassan Nasrallah will have a rude awakening if he tries to emulate Hamas in Gaza and seize the whole country. “No victor, no vanquished” is the rule Lebanese live by in both politics and war, and every faction that has ever tried to dominate Lebanon has learned it the hard way.

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tag: Lebanon.