Lessons learned or stating the obvious?

I'm no big time analyst, but I do read.

Israel has learned the lessons of Iraq, and forgotten those of it's own history, it seems to me.

'Shock and awe' style air campaigns are not a replacement for 'boots on the ground'! War is NOT an antiseptic endeavor that can be promulgated with little loss.

Israel is on verge the of losing it's first war, and in doing so the rest of the west will suffer. At first we we're told Israel was simply 'prepping the battle space', but what has followed is not the efforts of the Israel of decades past. Israel has even announced publicly that it would not 'expand' it's efforts. As each hour and day passes and the rockets still fall their resolve seems further weakened.

In the first few days even many Islamic countries were condemning Hizballah, however, as Israel falters that is fading. International pressures for a cease fire is growing, with even the U.S. growing louder.
Iran will be further emboldened, and that's not a good thing. Indeed, the Sunni and Shia factions have been given time to consider the old Bedouin proverb "I against my brother I and my brother against our cousin, my brother and our cousin against the neighbors, all of us against the foreigner" in a new light.

A cease fire that doesn't remove the threat, even with 'peace keepers', marks the end of a bold experiment. Israel may continue to exist, but be seen as a toothless martyr to those countries that surround it.

Israel has been a beacon of sorts, rather like our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan if they're allowed to continue. Combined they constitute a positive view of the 21st century and the future. Tribal societies trying to recreate a centuries old Islamic world that never really existed must keep trying to extinguish those beacons.

And the bigger truth has little to do with the individual Israeli warrior, who are collectively, second to none.

There's a positive note I can end with... I've been wrong before.