Hezbollah's attack on Israel, which killed eight soldiers, took two captive, and brought rocket fire on the north, was a calculated move by an Iranian-created and Iranian-funded proxy. It came as Iran faced scrutiny over its nuclear program and needed a distraction, and after years of stockpiling weapons in hardened fortifications. Hezbollah's aims were to inflict as many Israeli casualties as possible and, more importantly, to survive the inevitable counteroffensive. It succeeded at the second, and so claimed victory despite gaining no ground and losing several times as many fighters as the IDF. Unlike Israel, it faced no restraint over civilian deaths, which actually served its purposes, and it hid weapons and fighters in private homes. A longer conflict without a decisive Israeli victory only enhanced its reputation. Both sides found the ceasefire in their interest: Hezbollah, though battered, could stop while still able to fire rockets and still holding fortified positions. The ceasefire's implementation, under U.N. Resolution 1701, is stalled in a catch-22. Contributing nations want Hezbollah to disarm first, Hezbollah refuses, and Israel will not withdraw until peacekeepers arrive. Even so, neither side has a compelling reason to resume fighting, since Hezbollah is militarily weakened and losing popular support. Iran's president, however, feels emboldened, and Hezbollah remains a useful tool to be used again when the time is right.

Hezbollah is the Shiite Muslim terrorist group based in southern Lebanon and supported by Iran. It says it will not disarm as long as Israel remains a threat, which means as long as Israel still exists. Israel's hasty withdrawal from southern Lebanon in late May, after 22 years of occupation, was made for political rather than military reasons. It gave up a vital buffer zone that protected Galilee and the Jezreel Valley, leaving the northern border vulnerable to Syrian and terrorist attack. Israeli leaders judged the move pragmatic, since Hezbollah's ability to harm Israelis inside Israel is minimal. They also expected Syria, which now has free rein throughout Lebanon, to clamp down on the group. The Assad family is nominally Sunni and has closer political and economic ties to the Lebanese Christian Maronites than to Hezbollah. Whether the withdrawal will come back to haunt Israel remains to be seen.

Hezbollah is a militant force in Lebanon that Syria props up and Lebanon coddles. Lebanon, a handmaiden of Iran, has no hope of attacking Israel meaningfully because of its own civil turmoil, so Hezbollah by itself does not rise to the level of a serious threat. Still, Syria, Lebanon, and neighboring nations would descend on Israel like a pack of hyenas if they smelled weakness and fear. The danger of Hezbollah grows with the chaos of the Arab Spring and the war in Syria. Syria's chemical weapons could fall into Hezbollah's hands, and neither Israel nor Turkey wants that. Both nations border Syria and fear spillover into their territories. That shared concern, along with wariness of Iran's nuclear ambitions and a desire to limit radical Islam and keep regional stability, gives Israel and Turkey a reason to restore close ties, which would ease Israel's isolation.

Hezbollah, together with the Palestinian Authority's leadership, Hamas, and Al Qaeda, belongs to the radical Islamic fundamentalist leadership that knows full well it cannot defeat America and the West in head-to-head warfare and will not attempt it yet. These groups hold both a short-range and a long-range goal. The short-range goal is to seize control of their own nations, beginning with the moderate Arab states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Oman, Yemen, and Kuwait. They want to rule these with the same kind of strength that Qadhafi has in Libya, Hussein in Iraq, and the Assad family in Syria. Only after that can they turn full attention to an outright confrontation with the King of the North, and the West is on their long-range list. Their attacks on the West come first from hatred, and second from the belief that terrorism gradually breaks the West's will to support the moderate Arab states. Terrorism aims to create fear, instability, and uncertainty, freezing the West into confused inaction. It also wins favor with the man on the street in Islamic nations, those sitting on the fence, who may be pushed toward radical fundamentalism. These peoples are descendants of many of the ancient enemies of Israel, and the clash is the same basic conflict between the same basic peoples, repeating because God, Satan, and human nature never change.