The turning point in the Lebanon War is imminent.

Both Israel and Hezbollah are facing a turning point inthe war in Lebanon..and it's going to be resolved in the battlefiled, not in the UN.

Hezbollah's leader Shiek Nasrallah got his instructions from Tehran and made a recorded statement over Hezbollah's Al Manar television tonight. Twenty minutes into his speech, he dropped the bomb: Under no circumstances would Hezbollah accept any kind of multinatonal force in South Lebanon. He made a point of addressing a warning to Lebanese prime minister Siniora not to make any moves towards accepting a multilateral force without Nasrallah's permission.

Like I said, Hezbollah is Lebanon..and Nasrallah runs it, just like he said he did.

That said it's vitally important to remember at this point who calls the shots for Hezbollah - and his name is not Nasrallah. When Ahmadinejad or Khamenei say sing, Nasrallah says `name that tune!'




`Showtime, Mr. Bossman mullah sir...what you wanna hear?'



This pretty much torpedoes the US/ French attempt to come up with a UN resolution to call for a ceasefire. Not that it was looking too well anyway.

Two hours later, a massive movement of Israeli ground troops and tanks began moving into Lebanon, headed up north past the Litani River to seek out and destroy Hezbollah’s rocket sites.

Nasrallah is taking a major gamble. A defeat by the IDF would finish him and Hezbollah off for the foreseeable future. At the same time, all he has to do is to hold on for another month and keep up his rocket offensive against northern Israel to come out looking good.

His personal safety is pretty much assured at this point - the latest reports I've gotten say that he's set up his war room in the Iranian embassy in Beirut under the protection of two Revolutionary Guards companies. That makes sense, becasue it's probably the one place he can be that's sure not to be attacked or bombed...and if things go badly, he can claim asylum there.

The IDF is going to have to pull something out of the hat in order to win this. Today was a particularly bad day, with 15 dead and 34 injured, mostly in the continued fighting in Bint Jubeil.

The IDF will have to break through in the South, or bypass the Hezbollah positions there (maybe by taking out the Hezbollah postions in Tyre) and drive for the Litani River, cross it and move forward up to the Aouli River, crushing Hezbollah's forces and eliminating the rocket launching bases as the IDF advances.

This kind of use of ground forces is why General Kaplinsky was brought in to take command.

Stay tuned....