The conventional wisdom (but not mine) is that Israel is escalating the air campaign in Lebanon in the hope that Hezbollah will back down. If so, it isn’t working. Hezbollah is continuing to fire missiles at Israel, but in proportion to the intensity of the air campaign; its leaders insist it will not stop until there is a cease-fire in Gaza. If nothing changes, therefore, the Israelis must either admit their effort to prevent missile attacks is a failure or begin a major ground offensive.
If the latter, what then? Lebanon isn’t Gaza, where Hamas can only hide in the civilian population or go underground; if the Israelis take Hezbollah’s initial positions, the fighters can simply retreat to the north or even into Syria. Some of their missiles, in all likelihood, can still hit Israel from there. Then what? Are the Israelis going to occupy most of Lebanon, and even some of Syria? And this, with the Gaza campaign still going on?
The Israelis tried occupying parts of Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s. In the end, it didn’t work. Why would the result be any different this time?