Remember how the Israeli attack on Gaza had supposedly destroyed the network of tunnels between Gaza and Egypt?  According to Danger Room, (as Jon Stewart would say), uh, not so much:

The Israeli military bombed hundreds of tunnels during the Gaza war — to shut down Hamas‘ weapons-smuggling routes, and to put pressure on Egypt to the militants from getting more. But just days after the battle’s end, those tunnels are re-opening, with Hamas in charge.

“Hamas has seized control of all the smuggling tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor in southern Gaza and has been moving additional arms into the Strip since Operation Cast Lead ended on Sunday morning,” the Jerusalem Post reports. Those passages, “are usually run by local Palestinian clans, and Hamas’s decision to take control is believed to be part of the group’s attempts to reestablish its regime in Gaza. Hamas can now decide what is smuggled into the Strip and give priority to weapons and explosives.”

At the beginning of the conflict, I noted that the Olmert government appeared to lack any clear strategic vision of what it wanted to achieve and why it thought war was the only way to achieve it.  Now, with a fragile cease-fire in place and Israeli troops having completed their withdrawal from the strip, we find out that one of the supposed tactical objectives of the war — closure of the tunnels — not only wasn’t successful, but is now actually worse:  Hamas remains large and now is in charge.

I am no Middle East expert (I suggest if you want first-rate analysis on the conflict and its aftermath, go to Daniel Levy’s outstanding blog), but I can see.  As far as I can tell, here’s where we are now that the conflict has “ended.”

1.  The tunnels remain open and are now under the control of Hamas.

2.  Hamas’s leadership remains largely intact.

3.  Although Hamas’s control over Gaza is, by some reports, less tenuous, Fatah’s control over the West Bank suffered far greater damage, from which it may never recover.

4.  There are increasing calls for an international investigation into allegations that the Israeli military used white phosphorus rounds indiscriminately — and in the process helping to obscure the fact that Hamas’s firing of rockets and its use of human shields clearly constitute war crimes.

5.  The war appears to have hurt Kadima and its allies politically; were the elections to be held today, Likud would sweep to victory and Benjamin Netanyahu would become prime minister.

6.  Although it’s unclear whether those on the Palestinian side who lost their lives in the conflict were predominantly Hamas fighters or civilians, international opinion has largely coalesced around the idea that a significant number of civilians were killed indiscriminately as a result of both the bombardment and invasion.

7.  As a result, Israel is even more isolated internationally than it was before, and now must deal with an American administration that, while committed to supporting Israel, is less likely to tolerate such foolishness in the future.

8.  And perhaps most relevant to the casus belli that started this whole mess, Hamas is busily rebuilding its capacity to fire rockets into Israel.

So why exactly did Israel go to war?  And what exactly did it accomplish — other than to weaken further the government’s own position both domestically and internationally?  And how does this differ from what happened in Lebanon a few years ago?

Did you learn anything from that conflict?  Anything at all?  Bueller?

Stupid would not be too strong a word to describe this mess.

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