The gloves are coming off, but so are the masks. Over the past week, Washington has rarely missed a chance to name "Syria and Iran" - always in tandem - as the real threat. And while the IDF and the Lebanese army had to keep their friendly affair quiet at the time of Michael Totten's visit ("We have very good relations with them. We're working with them and trying to help make them relevant”), freedom-loving Lebanese are now being less coy about their desire to be free of Hezbollah and to have peace with their southern neighbor.

There is growing respect for Israel among its nominal enemies - not that respect among seasoned veterans of "the other side" was ever lacking, as a certain guest-blogger at Big Pharaoh attests:

This idiot Nasrallah. He is so funny. He keeps on issuing threats, he has no idea what he is talking about. What Israel is doing to him now is just gentle padding on the shoulders. [Nasrallah] didn't see what we saw. Israel fought on 3 fronts in 1967 and it was hell.

It's a good time for us in the neocon camp to take stock. I myself have been among the centrists who favored Israel's disengagement from Gaza:

What is Sharon’s strategy? [As Clifford D. May says,] “... not coexistence but only disengagement. His goal is to divorce Israelis from Palestinians.”

The plan is disengagement. It is withdrawal into defensible borders. It is refusing to play the enemy’s game. In short, it is all about setting boundaries – which is why May’s “divorce” metaphor is so apt. Israel and Palestine are like an unhappy couple, living together out of habit, unable to stand each other, making one another’s lives miserable, and yet unable to let go. It is the very study of a dysfunctional and co-dependent relationship.

Yossi Klein Halevi writes that

Those of us who have supported unilateralism didn't expect a quiet border in return for our withdrawal but simply the creation of a border from which we could more vigorously defend ourselves, with greater domestic consensus and international understanding. The anticipated outcome, then, wasn't an illusory peace but a more effective way to fight the war. The question wasn't whether Hamas or Hezbollah would forswear aggression but whether Israel would act with appropriate vigor to their continued aggression.' But 'If unilateralists made a mistake, it was in believing our political leaders--including Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert--when they promised a policy of zero tolerance against any attacks emanating from Gaza after Israel's withdrawal. That policy was not implemented--until two weeks ago.

Commenting on YKL's article, Solomonia agrees that the past two weeks are seeing a belated fulfillment of Israel's "promise to seriously respond to provocations after withdrawal" and concludes:

It would be nice (not the right word, but you get the point) to see some direct action against the Syrian regime (no more flyovers without a delivery), as they also need to feel the pinch, which they should have felt long ago, for being Hamas's hosts. Action against Iran is a bigger nut to crack, and one that I don't want to tackle right now, but it looks like that's coming soon anyway, especially as they've said they'll fight if Syria is attacked. ... On the other hand, it could very well be that the Israelis have taken the measure of the Syrians and have decided they're nothing but chumps in all this. They're saving their punches for Iran.

Jeremayakovka offers some insights on "Why is This Jewish War Different From All Other Jewish Wars?" and notes that

It's another test of Natan Sharansky's free society/fear society thesis, as set forth in The Case for Democracy. That is, this is a chance to support dissenters within the "fear societies" that Israel is attacking -- in Gaza and Lebanon (a must-read from Carl in Jerusalem) and possibly Syria and Iran. ... It largely depends on how close the American eagle flies to the Israeli "canary in the coal mine."

Jeremaya is reassured by Yossi Peled's promise that "Tsahal's [the IDF's] mission is today to strike at Hezbollah with such force that the movement won't survive." So am I.

As the last two observers have noted, much depends on Israel's fulfillment of its promise, and on the support of the American eagle. If President George W. Bush does indeed plan to bring back the neocons, then we may be heading in that direction. The Bush Administration's flirtation with so-called "realism" has proved an abject failure. Our successes to date have come from the dual-track approach of strengthening freedom movements while aggressively confronting fascism and terrorism. Let's not stop now. The time for playing "good cop" is over.

[Adapted from Morning Report: July 14 at Dreams Into Lightning.]