Olmert: Lebanon Op Already a Success

With fighting still raging in the North, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert all but declared victory Tuesday night, saying the military operation had already led to a dramatic change in the region.

If the fighting were to end today, Olmert said at a graduation ceremony at the National Security College in Glilot, near Tel Aviv, "it would be possible to say with certainty that the face of the Middle East has changed as a result of this great Israeli achievement."

"Three weeks ago, Israel decided it would no longer live under this cloud of threat, and would deal with it with courage and determination," he said. "This very decision and the demonstration of national unity and the country's determination and the courage of the soldiers changed the face of things. And that change will leave its imprint on the Middle East for many years."

With that, however, Olmert seemed to be lowering the country's expectations as to the outcome of the war, saying that neither he, Defense Minister Amir Peretz nor the IDF General Staff ever promised that Israel would completely eradicate the missile threat from Lebanon.

Olmert said, it was now clear that those who fire the missiles "will never dare to create the type of friction that would bring about the kind of confrontation that would cause this type of fire," because they know the high cost that will be extracted.

"Israel is succeeding in this battle, and is gaining unprecedented achievements," he said. Olmert, again deflecting criticism that the operation has not brought about enough tangible achievements, repeated what he said a day earlier about Hezbollah's capacity having been severely curtailed.

"Never again will it be able to threaten this country that it will fire rockets at it, because this people dealt with the missiles and beat them. It is impossible to say to the Israeli public, 'Give up, surrender, bend down because, God forbid, someone will threaten you with missiles.'"

He said Israel would "agree to a cease-fire once we know with certainty the conditions in the field will be different than those that led to the eruption of this war."