Analysis: When Will Be Next Mideast War?

Israeli soldiers embrace after returning from southern Lebanon in northern Israel Monday, Aug. 14, 2006. A U.N.-imposed cease-fire went into effect Monday designed to end a month of violence that killed more than 900 people.(AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti) (Emilio Morenatti - AP)

JERUSALEM -- The war in Lebanon has badly bruised the Israeli government and boosted Hezbollah's standing in the Arab world.

Israel says it has made some gains _ the Lebanese army, backed by international troops, is to take control of south Lebanon.

But as the guns fall silent, an ominous question lingers over the Jewish state: Is another war with Hezbollah or even its sponsor Iran just around the corner?

A cease-fire that took effect Monday seeks to end the 34-day conflict in which the mightiest army in the Middle East was fought to a virtual draw by a small band of Shiite guerrillas.

Developments on the ground will determine the war's ultimate winners and losers _ whether Hezbollah will be pushed back from Israel's border and eventually disarmed, whether Israel will be able to prevent Iran and Syria from funneling weapons to Lebanese guerrillas, whether Islamic radicals everywhere will be propped up by Hezbollah's successes.

For now, neither side can truly declare victory. Hezbollah's ability to withstand more than a month of Israel's punishing assaults while firing an uninterrupted stream of more than 4,000 rockets has given its fighters heroic status on Arab and Muslim streets.

"The biggest thing here is that Hezbollah and their small force has been able to restore the dignity of the Arabs. That is the bottom line," said Timur Goksel, an American University of Beirut professor who spent more than two decades as a senior U.N. adviser in south Lebanon.

But having joined the Lebanese government, the guerrillas are likely to pay a steep political price for provoking Israel's wrath. On July 12, they captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others in a daring cross-border raid, sparking a war that killed more than 790 Lebanese and left much of that country in shambles.

And even if Israel achieves its goal of pushing Hezbollah away from its border, it, too, has suffered great losses, with 155 dead and hundreds of thousands of people forced to flee their homes or seek refuge in bomb shelters.

Israel failed to achieve its original goal of destroying Hezbollah or the group's fearsome array of Iranian- and Syrian-provided rockets.

Israeli critics are warning that Israel's deterrence may have suffered a life-threatening blow, giving archenemy Iran an opening to pursue its stated goal of destroying Israel.

"A couple thousand Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters kept Israel at bay for over a month," said Chuck Freilich, Israel's former deputy National Security Adviser who is now a senior fellow at the Kennedy School of Government. "This now shows that irregular forces with Iranian support can be effective against a large and sophisticated conventional army."