To the great relief of ordinary people in Lebanon and Israel, and those anxiously observing the highly-destructive 33-day war between them, its operations ceased yesterday following agreement on a United Nations resolution.
While optimism that the ceasefire can hold would be ill-advised, there is room to hope that the uneven but crudely-balanced outcome will have convinced both its main protagonists, the Israeli Defence Forces and the Hizbullah movement, that not much is to be gained by perpetuating the fighting at this stage. As thousands of people on both sides of the border returned home, their determination may well dissuade their leaders from going back to war in the short term, however unsatisfactory their military achievements have been.
It was above all an air war. Israeli Defence Forces chief of staff Lt-Gen Dan Halutz undertook to destroy Hizbullah's military and human infrastructure within weeks at most, mainly by using air power against it. This reflected his own military background, and it may well prove to be one of the most notable miscalculations in the history of the subject. For the strategy failed to achieve its most important political objective - to convince Sunni and Christian populations in Lebanon that they should turn against Hizbullah by destroying the country's civilian infrastructure. Instead, there was a growing solidarity between them, in sheer revulsion against the campaign's wanton nature. Nor was it effective against Hizbullah's military infrastructure as a guerrilla movement intimately involved in the life of its community. Only a lengthy land battle could accomplish that task.
In the event, Hizbullah's capacity to attack northern Israel with rockets was hardly dented. That was the other horribly destructive element of this war. Israel's human casualties and physical destruction were about one-tenth of those in Lebanon, but upwards of one million people were forced away from their homes or into bunkers, with very little to show for it in terms of decisive victory.
There will be a colossal military and political reckoning from this largely futile confrontation. It leaves much of the previous strategic status quo untouched, despite the huge human and material cost. For Hizbullah to survive the threat to destroy it gives the movement a victory of sorts against an impregnable Israeli military. Nevertheless, Israel has demonstrated its awesome military power, based on close support from the United States, in a show of deterrence against Iran and Syria.
Precisely this continuing impasse leads pessimists to conclude that the ceasefire cannot be sustained, based as it is on a flawed resolution from the United Nations Security Council. But popular pressure on both sides could prevent small incidents from flaring into another major encounter while a more balanced and long-term political resolution is sought over coming days and weeks. There should be room to recognise that this messy outcome could be the basis for a realistic regional peace agreement if its lessons are properly learned.