Janice Gross-Stein

That was one round of fighting ago.

Hezbollah had 150,000 rockets that could reach to the center of Israel.

So this is a significant fighting force.

This is not what you would call a small-scale militia.

And it has been armed and financed by Iran all these years.

And that's how these two theaters are connected.

Bibi Netanyahu has achieved none of his goals.

And that just underlines what you and I have talked about, that if you don't understand war as politics by other means, and you don't have a clear plan that aligns the way you fight the war with the political objectives you're trying to accomplish when the war is over, you're going to miss the boat.

What does this translate into?

And it's very real.

There are elections in Israel this year, no later than October.

I think Netanyahu was hoping to have a huge strategic victory to call early elections and to dig himself out of a political hole in which he is.

What do the public opinions tell us now?

That if these polls, very complicated way of translating into seats there, but let's leave that aside.

There's no way that Netanyahu could form a coalition in Israel if the election were held tomorrow.

So he's dug himself deeper into a political hole, and he's going to have to compromise on the strategic objectives because, as the Israeli press will tell you, here's the theme and the meme.

It's in cartoons and it's everywhere.

Israel did the fighting, the United States is making the decisions, and in many cases, Israel is not even at the table.

So it's a political defeat as well as a strategic defeat.

That's absolutely right.