(This reaction to the cease-fire is not good news, and now Iran's Ahmadinejad is calling for the US to "disarmed.")

Posted on August 7, 2006:

This report out of Damascus is why Hezbollah must be routed in southern Lebanon. Key quotes:

In the last few weeks alone [Damascus shop owner] Ali says he has sold thousands of posters ranging from close-ups of a serene-looking Nasrallah to Hizbollah fighters stepping over skulls of Israeli soldiers.

"My customers are from every sect and religion. Nasrallah is the only Arab leader alive who has actually achieved something. He liberated south Lebanon from Israel," Ali said.

"You see pictures of Arab leaders in Cairo, Amman and elsewhere, but what have they done? Here in Syria we are still living off our achievements in the 1973 war with Israel and that wasn't even a victory," he said.

Back in 2000, Hezbollah claimed victory following the Israeli withdrawal. The subsequent failure of the Security Council to enforce its own disarmament resolutions and to hold Syria and Iran accountable for arming Hezbollah allowed the group to consolidate its power in the south. This time, when the current fighting ends, there should be little doubt that Hezbollah’s policy of creating a terror state within a state to attack Israel has failed.