The day after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's deputy, Adam Ereli – and not the Israelis themselves – announced an immediate 48-hour suspension of aerial strikes in southern Lebanon, Ms. Rice said she believed a cease-fire to end fighting between militant Islamic Hizbullah fighters and Israel could be accomplished this week. The suspension followed the deaths of more than 50 Lebanese civilians in an air raid in Qana Sunday.

But the BBC reports that Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz has said that despite the suspension of aerial attacks — which does not include raids meant to defend Israeli civilians or troops — Israel cannot agree to a cease-fire, saying that if fighting were to stop now, "the extremists will rear their heads anew."

One reason for Israel's reluctance to accept a cease-fire is that a growing number of terrorism and security experts, and even members of Hizbullah's political wing, believe that Hizbullah will be seen as the "winner" of the battle with Israel if it merely survives. Newsweek reports that as the fighting has continued and Israel has not been able to achieve significant military goals, the Bush administration has come to the realization that "Hizbullah could win simply by losing."

Already Israel's incursion has lasted longer than the Yom Kippur War or the Six Day War. Though Israeli officials said publicly that they had expected the stiff resistance Hizbullah guerrillas showed, other Israeli analysts were more skeptical. "It's not going well," says historian Tom Segev. "It should never have started."

Bush officials, who earlier had been confident the Iranian-backed militia could be crippled quickly by Israel's military, were "freaked out" by Hizbullah's resilience, says one senior US official who didn't want to be named expressing skepticism about policy. "It is a very, very dangerous situation," said another, who requested anonymity for the same reason. "The more Hizbullah resists, and the more Israel hits back at them, the more open-ended this is."

In Beirut a member of Hizbullah's politburo smiled when asked what it would take for Hizbullah to win. "To hang on," he told Newsweek. "When we can stand in the face of the forces supported by the United States, that is a great victory."

Newsweek also reports that Israeli military officials have been stunned to discover the "extent to which Hizbullah has dug in, and the sophistication of their communications as well as the camouflage of their installations."

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In an editorial, the Daily Telegraph of London reports that the "Qana bombing cruelly underscores the high risk associated with Israel's wholly justifiable attempt to eradicate Hizbullah."

The terrorist organization, with lethal cynicism, routinely locates its rocket sites in densely populated areas, making tragic incidents of this kind almost inevitable, and so adding grist to Hizbullah's propaganda mill.

And it is not the first time (nor will it be the last) that the concept of the "surgical strike" against terrorist targets has been exposed as hollow: the Israeli military's claim that the people of Qana had been warned to leave is simply gratuitous. Most of them, it seems, had neither the means nor the opportunity to flee.

But Mitch Prothero of Salon writes that it's a "myth" that Hizbullah hides among the civilian population of Lebanon. Hizbullah fighters, he says, are warying about mingling with the general population for fear of being exposed by collaborators, as is often the case with Palestinian militants in the West Bank and Gaza.

In an analysis for The Washington Post, Peter Baker writes that it is not only Israel which stands to lose ground if the conflict ends without the defeat of Hizbullah, but the United States as well. Some experts believe that the longer the conflict between Israel and Hizbullah drags on — a conflict some see as proxy war between the US and Iran — the US could find itself in the isolated position it was in just before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which could greatly hinder its foreign policy objectives on issues like Iran's nuclear program.

Jon B. Alterman, a Middle East specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, outlined "not even the worst-case scenario, but a bad-case scenario: South Lebanon is in shambles, Hizbullah gets credit for rebuilding it with Iranian money, Hizbullah grows stronger in Lebanon and it's not brought to heel. The reaction of surrounding states weakens them, radicalism rises, and they respond with more repression. None of this is especially far-fetched. And in all of this, the US is seen as a fundamentally hostile party."

The Christian Science Monitor reported Monday that Iranian leaders were already feeling much less constrained "by fears of America."

"Four years after being labeled part of the axis of evil, Iran has a sense of being on the rise while the US and the West are increasingly weak, and they have reason to think that way," says Lawrence Haas, an Iran specialist at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute.

Iran's tactics may backfire, these analysts add. The United Nations Security Council could vote as early as Monday on a resolution threatening sanctions if it doesn't suspend enriching uranium by Aug. 31. Still, the list of factors contributing to Iran's growing sense of power is long – from the removal of two neighboring enemies in Saddam Hussein and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the rise of friendly Shiite forces in Iraq, the expansion of radical Islamism, and drawn-out international diplomacy over Iran's nuclear program.

Hizbullah's other backer, Syria, is also benefitting from Hizbullah's "rising stock" among Arab nations, reports Brian Whitaker of the Guardian.

Less than three weeks into the war in Lebanon, Hizbullah's standing is rising dramatically among the Arab public. The reasoning in Damascus is that, short of annihilating Lebanon's Shia population, Hizbullah cannot be destroyed. At some point, the argument goes, Israel will have to back off and Hizbullah will claim victory for having survived the onslaught.

In anticipation of this, the Syrian regime, while trying to stay out of the conflict itself, is seeking to bask in Hizbullah's glory. Posters on sale in the streets, and displayed in the back of car windows, depict President Bashar al-Assad shoulder to shoulder with Hassan Nasrallah. "Syria doesn't have to do very much to be potentially in a position to gain," said one western diplomat in Damascus.

The Guardian reports that the growing opposition to the US, and its support of Israel, has acted to silence what had been a growing dissatisfaction with the regime of Bashir Assad. "A month ago there was considerable attention being paid to Assad's crackdown on the opposition," wrote Damascus-based commentator Joshua Landis in his blog. "Not today."

Newsweek reports in the above piece that many Israelis know that if Hizbullah "wins" this war, it will have a far greater significance than the immediate battle.

"The message that will be conveyed to the Arab and Muslim world will be quite simply that fanaticism pays," says Dror Etkes, an activist with Peace Now. "We cannot be seen as the losing side," says historian Amatzia Baram. "The Islamic world is [1.2] billion people. Israel is 6 million ... If we stop right now, it means we lost."

Conservative blogger Hugh Hewitt writes at Townhall.org that breaking off the war before Hizbullah has been militarily neutralized "would have consequences to the global war on terror almost too terrible to imagine. Hizbullah would become Lebanon. And it would do so under the protection of the UN."

Ha'aretz reports that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) understands that time is not on its side. While publicly saying it needs two more weeks to complete its operations against Hizbullah, IDF commanders are saying privately that they may only have until this Wednesday or Thursday, when the UN Security Council meets to discuss a cease-fire.

The bombing of Qana was a turning point in the world's attitude toward the fighting. The IDF's attempt to say that it is not entirely clear who is responsible for the killing does not sound convincing. The factual and political debate on the incident nearly drowned out the comments by Major General Gadi Eizenkot, who warned against the temptation of stopping the army now, only to have it confront a similar crisis when Hizbullah is backed by a nuclear Iran in the future.

• France says Iran is respected, stabilizing force in Middle East (Ha'aretz)
• Cry to those using babies (Ha'aretz)
• Female Arab reporters brave dangers on front lines of Lebanon war (Agence-France Presse)
• Hizbullah is our enemy, too (Townhall.org)

Feedback appreciated. E-mail Tom Regan.