With America Watching, Israel Needs a Knockout

It's tough, in war, to keep one's equilibrium, especially when one's mood -depending on the news - swings from euphoria to despair.

Euphoria was in the air Tuesday morning, as the headlines screamed that Israel took over a Hezbollah stronghold without any IDF casualties. Despair replaced that feeling Wednesday morning, with reports of the bitter battle in Bint Jbail that left several soldiers dead.

The work is not easy. If you solely use airpower, then the critics say you can't beat Hezbollah from the air and that you need to introduce ground troops. But when you introduce ground troops, and there are loses, as their inevitable will be, the critics question your wisdom and warn once again of sinking into the "Lebanese morass."

It's a no-win situation. Yet this is a war that Israel must win, and decisively.

Even if Hezbollah does not at this time pose an existential threat to the country - Hezbollah will not throw us into the sea -- Israel needs to win this war, and deliver a punishing blow to Hezbollah, for another key reason: to preserve our status as a key strategic US ally.

Washington is watching to see how we do. The US wants to see Hezbollah weakened badly; it wants to see Damascus weakened badly; it wants to see Iran suffer the loss of a key proxy. This is in their interest. This will help their own efforts in Iraq.

Israel needs to deliver Hezbollah a resounding defeat for many different reasons: not the least of which is to preserve its strategic position in the eyes of the Americans. And that is an existential imperative.