'Destroy Lebanon' plan off the shelf and implement it very quickly. Remember, both sides have been preparing for this conflict for a long time."
But the results of the plan have been far different than both sides had anticipated, says the source.
"You've got to empathize with the enemy to the extent to that you don't have a cartoon character that you're fighting, but someone that might be smarter than anybody in your administration."— Milt Bearden
The Great Game
Lebanon has once again become a pawn in a game between internal and international powers, and the result may be that everyone loses. But once again the biggest loser, it seems, is Lebanon. The country had finally turned the economic and political corner from its devastating civil war in 70s and 80s and was also asserting — with the exception of the presence of the armed Hezbollah militia in the south — a sense of its own sovereignty after Syrian troops departed its soil in March 2005. Lebanon was more interested in economic growth than military might, pumping billions into hotels, restaurants, resorts and business. The hope was to regain the title of "the Paris of the Middle East," and for a short time it succeeded.Some Middle East observers believe that Lebanon's failure to invest in a strong military — one with sovereignty over the entire nation, including the strongholds of Hezbollah's militia in the south — may have been its undoing.
Israel has even attacked Lebanese army bases, while at the same time hectoring the Lebanese government to get control of its southern border and Israel's failure so far to put Hezbollah "on the ropes