My Predictions

These were my predictions at the beginning of the war:

1. Hostilities ending the first week of August.
2. Big losses for Hezbollah in arms, manpower, and territory but not total defeat.
3. A more confident, brazen, and angry Iran emerging out of all of this.
4. An Arab world (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia) awakened to the threat Iran poses to their regional interests.
5. Increasing cooperation between the Arab world and the U.S. to deal with Iran.
6. Increasing impatience on Israel's part with Iran's nuclear program and belligerence.

Some of my predictions were off: the cease-fire came a little later than I expected, and Hezbollah did not lose any territory (we'll see what the Lebanese/UN force is going to do).

Some are not clear yet: who knows how the Sunni Arab world will react and how Israel will respond to Iran's belligerence.

Some were right on: Hezbollah was beaten up, but not beaten. And Iran, more than anyone else, is claiming victory in this war.

But regardless of my predictions, I had not imagined things winding up (just beginning?) this way at all. A major shift has just occured in the Middle East and each day since the cease-fire we are learning more exactly what this shift will mean... More later...