What Would a Hezbollah Victory Mean for Lebanon?

The Daily Star's perspicacious Michael Young writes:

A Hizbullah victory, by showing that the party can stand up to Israel, and can do so because it mobilized its armed state within the state without consulting any of its Lebanese political partners, may crack the already frayed Lebanese consensus...

What is Nasrallah thinking today, as his exhausted coreligionists stumble into schools and public facilities, their lives in shambles? He's probably focused on the political endgame...To Nasrallah's advantage, he doesn't need a military victory in order to secure his political resurrection. He needs only to survive with his militia intact and Israel sufficiently bloodied...

...If enough international pressure builds up for a cease-fire, Nasrallah must be calculating, then he might be able to turn everything around. Iranian money would finance Shiite reconstruction; he could tell his brethren that they paid a high price, but also preserved their dignity...

...the Israelis may have created years of sectarian resentment. Nasrallah can play on this to rouse his coreligionists out of their stupor. Look, he might say, where our fellow Lebanese were when the Israelis came after us; they criticized the resistance, and by extension all Shiites. Such thinking might help save Nasrallah's skin, but it could push Lebanon over the brink.