Hezbollah Threat: Lebanon Watches Gaza Fight

An Old War's Wins and Losses

The victory Hezbollah often cites -- one that Hamas is now using as a model for its operations -- is the perceived win of 2006.

A shell fired by the Israeli military explodes in the northern Gaza Strip as seen from the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2009.

(Bernat Armangue/AP Photo )
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"Hezbollah has used its ability to survive, what it sees as victory, as leverage," said Cordesman, the security expert.

In November, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israeli officials that Hezbollah had tripled its weapons stockpile. In a little more than two years since the Israeli-Hezbollah cease-fire of 2006, he said, its arsenal has grown from 14,000 rockets to 42,000.

"Hezbollah can certainly carry out significant rocket launches against Israel, but whether it can do serious damage is another question. And Israel has reorganized, retrained its army, restructured its targeting and Air Force. The Israeli Defense Force has learned from experience," Cordesman said.

As Israel puts those lessons into practice against Hamas, Cordesman said, it gives rise to a new security risk. He and others say this is a fight Israel must win.

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"If Israel doesn't very substantially achieve its goal, Hamas survives and this becomes the second war where Israel uses its military force but cannot achieve a decisive win, it undercuts the Israeli deterrent, or edge, in the region," he said.

Hezbollah has also had to account for gains and losses on its side.

With the deployment of UNIFIL troops and the Lebanese army after the war in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah lost some control over the border area.

While some analysts point out that the Lebanese army has strong links to Hezbollah and would support it in any fight with Israel, Carnegie's Salem believes the forces patrolling southern Lebanon have limited the launch of cross-border raids.

That limitation was one of Israel's primary achievements from the Second Lebanon War, as the 2006 conflict has been called. It sets a limited but critical objective for Israel's fight with Hamas.

"As dreadfully executed as the Second Lebanon War was, the Lebanese border has been basically quiet for the past two years. If the Israelis can get to a situation where the Gaza-Israel border is quiet for some time, I think that would be a small victory," Senor said. "If it is quiet for a long time that would be a huge victory."

Among Hezbollah's post-war gains, said Salem, is massive popularity in the Arab and Muslim world. In Lebanon, Hezbollah consolidated its base and formed a political coalition with Christian and Druze leaders, consolidating its position as the preeminent Shiite political force.