There are moments in the political arena when the international community allows a nation considerable leeway in its actions — moments when a nation's reaction to the vicissitudes of existence is tacitly and overtly accepted. Particularly when said nation is drinking buddies with the last remaining superpower.

The United States found itself in this position following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Its subsequent and lamentably ongoing operation in Afghanistan was accepted and, for the most part, supported by the international community. The current operation in Iraq was initially accepted as well, though it was less widely supported by an international community still shocked and frightened by the abhorrent hatred witnessed on 9/11. The community was further confused and worried by a flurry of doctored evidence that painted Iraq as a potential threat. I'll never forget Colin Powell at the United Nations — so believable and presidentially electable — emphatically insistent that Iraq had committed numerous and egregious affronts to the world's security.

Israel found itself in this same position following the killing of three and the kidnapping of two of its soldiers by Hezbollah. The act, an audacious and unprovoked attack reportedly on Israeli soil, left Israel in a rather unfamiliar position: the world was on its side.

More surprisingly, the Arab League was on its side.

Hezbollah, a thorn in its host's side and a group already ordered to disarm by a U.N. resolution, was being condemned from Mecca to Rajat. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in a rather large room in Cairo where the Arab League came face-to-face with a reality it has not approved of since its inception: Israel has a right to defend itself.

The League condemned the unprovoked attack, and Arabs from Dubai to Cairo were left scratching their heads in curious bewilderment at Hezbollah's audacity and their own newfound backing of Israel.

Israel had a green light to flex its U.S.-subsidized military strength, and it was anxious to do so. It seemed the region would soon be reminded of the regional superpower's military and technological strength. Israel was about to go Six-Day War all up in the Holy Land.

Alas, it was not to be.

Ah, for those halcyon days of a superior military achieving a swift and overpowering victory, for days of white flags and traditional militaries that don't use women and children — often their own — as shields. In this world, traditional military targets are few, and collateral damage is far more common than direct hits.

Israel found itself embroiled in a world where an enemy position could in fact be a hospital — a hospital curiously devoid of actual patients, and surprisingly full of gun-toting angry young men, but a hospital nonetheless. Israel found itself dropping quite a few of the world's most effective bombs onto enemies so intertwined in the civilian infrastructure that the killing of one Hezbollah militant invariably led to the deaths of bystanders — often reported to be militants' wives and children — and the destruction of civilian infrastructure.

Tehran and its Syrian underlings played Israel like a fiddle. Tehran and Damascus, Hezbollah's military and monetary backers, succeeded in turning southern Lebanon to a surrogate battlefield against Israel and the U.S. Tehran, locked into a political game of chess over its nuclear capabilities — a game it may have been losing — orchestrated an effective smokescreen, which conveniently coincided with the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, the very G8 Summit at which Iran's nuclear ambitions were to be a popular topic of conversation. Oh, serendipity!

Meanwhile, wannabe regional power Syria succeeded in forcing Israel into a military operation against a Lebanese government that has taken drastic steps away from extremism and its pro-Syrian stance in the past decade. While scores of Lebanese civilians were dying, Syrian leaders were gorging themselves on an incredibly favorable turn in Arab public opinion. Suddenly, Israel's right to defend itself the way it chose to do so did not seem like such a great idea anymore.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in Cairo where the Arab League realized that this was not to be the Seven-Day War. It would be more like the 34-Day-With-Lots-of-Civilian-Casualities War.

Eventually the civilian (and who is a civilian, and who is terrorist/insurgent/militant/Hezbollah lackey in this convoluted world of interwoven loyalties, anyway?) casualties were so great, and Israeli progress so small, that even the U.S. had to act and reign in its mini-superpower. Meanwhile, people throughout the Middle East lined up at comic book stores to get their limited-edition Hassan Nasrallah and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad trading cards.

So who won? I can't tell you that. I am not sure anyone can tell you that. But I can tell you who lost.

Lebanon.

Gerald Cox ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in economics.