The Anti-Kristol

Bill Kristol was not his usual self yesterday morning. He was very bearish on the War on Terror and specifically about Iran, Syria and Hizbollah and the current conflict with Israel as he discussed the issue with the FNS panel:

KRISTOL: You know, I mean, look. It's a terrible incident. And ironically, it's the same town that, 10 years ago, bombs killed civilians and that ended basically that Israeli attempt to deal with Hezbollah.

I don't know if this will end it or not. I think there will be a lot of second-guessing in Israel. There already is of Olmert's political and military strategy, the failure to go in on the ground, the dependence on air power.

You can't at one and the time say Hezbollah is a mortal threat to the state of Israel, an enemy of western civilization, and then say but we're not going to go in on the ground, we're going to establish a two-kilometer buffer, I don't think, in southern Lebanon.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell them what their military strategy should be. And obviously, they don't want to lose either Israeli lives or the civilian lives that would be lost in a ground campaign. But air power alone is a problem. And it's a bad situation, I think.

I think Hezbollah will end up winning this battle, if you want to put it this way, psychologically and politically. In the global war on terror, Iran will end up as a winner over this last month or six weeks, and that's extremely unfortunate.

...

KRISTOL: Hezbollah kills civilians all the time. The reason I am worried that this battle will be a victory for Hezbollah -- there's not going to be a permanent cease-fire. There's not, in my view, going to be a multinational force that ever goes in there.

This war will resume. Hezbollah is committed to the destruction of the state of Israel. Iran, its sponsor, is committed to the destruction of the state of Israel. And the Syrian government is a willing accomplice with Iran and Hezbollah.

...

KRISTOL: Yes, I think so. I mean, I think so. Obviously, I think they know that at the end of the day, there won't be serious sanctions. I told Nick Burns out there -- he's an old friend, and maybe he won't be after I say this, but I told him that I would buy him a nice dinner if there were ever serious sanctions imposed on Iran by the Security Council, or by Russia and China, or even really by the Europeans. I just don't believe it.

I think this policy -- we've had a very bad two months, in my view, in the global war on terror. The diplomatic ploy for Iran is not working. Iran is riding high.

In Iraq we killed Zarqawi and then we didn't take advantage of that opportunity, in my view, to really rethink the military strategy. And here with Hezbollah, they're now emboldened. So I hate to be such a bad news bear, but it's a depressing -- it's been a bad two months for us in the global war on terror.

Now, it's a long war, you have some setbacks, and we need to recoup. But I don't think that -- what worries me, and I'm an old friend of Nick Burns, but they're in denial, I think, in the Bush State Department. Everything's fine, Iran's in a corner. I mean, I don't really think that's the case.

Michael Totten, in his role as guest-blogger at Instapundit today linked to a piece in the NY Times, dated yesterday that offered a slightly different perspective on whether or not Iran truly sits in the cat-bird's seat:

These should be heady days for Iran’s leaders. Hezbollah, widely regarded as its proxy force in Lebanon, continues to rain down rockets on Israel despite 17 days of punishing airstrikes. Hezbollah’s leader is a hero of the Arab world, and Iran is basking in the reflected glory.

Yet this capital is unusually tense. Officials, former officials and analysts say that it is too dangerous even to discuss the crisis. In newspapers, the slightest questioning of support for Hezbollah has been attacked as unpatriotic, pro-Zionist and anti-Islamic.

As the war in Lebanon grinds on, Iranian officials cannot seem to decide whether Iran will emerge stronger — or unexpectedly weakened.

Michael Slackman offers something akin to hope though I'm not sure I'm completely comfortable in calling it such, that Iran, while it appears bolstered by the events of the day as described by Kristol, may in fact find itself worse off when the dust settles. I know not whether that is wishful thinking or a valid assessment of the situation.

Part of the difficulty is determining just how representative and, frankly, correct Slackman's sources are on the mood of Tehran. That I have not even an educated guess as to it's truthfulness or not, but I find it an interesting counter-argument to the pessimism of Bill Kristol.