In the early discussions with American officials, I was told by the Middle East expert and the government consultant, the Israelis repeatedly pointed to the war in Kosovo as an example of what Israel would try to achieve. The NATO forces commanded by U.S. Army General Wesley Clark methodically bombed and strafed not only military targets but tunnels, bridges, and roads, in Kosovo and elsewhere in Serbia, for seventy-eight days before forcing Serbian forces to withdraw from Kosovo. “Israel studied the Kosovo war as its role model,” the government consultant said. “The Israelis told Condi Rice, ‘You did it in about seventy days, but we need half of that—thirty-five days.’ ” ~Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker

I am actually a little shocked that I had this right all along–what sort of buffoon would use the Kosovo War as an example of a successful air campaign?  It was, by the standards set by the administration when it started, a failure in every respect except that it did eventually result in the withdrawal of Serb forces from Kosovo–eight weeks after it was supposed to have already been finished.  Did the Israelis really think they were going to break Hizbullah in half the time it took NATO to force concessions from Milosevic? 

The Israelis could not have been unaware that the population of Yugoslavia rallied around the despised Milosevic in just the same way that the Lebanese rallied around Nasrallah–not because they really admired or even tolerated the man, but because the people bombing them had made him the embodiment of all evil and thus, ironically, a symbol of their common resistance to the punitive measures being used against their entire country.  In defiance of such brutal treatment, people will latch onto the most disreputable figures as their champions for lack of an alternative.