Ever the political survivor, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert announced yesterday evening that he will not resign as a result of the damning final report from the Winograd commission on his government's conduct of the 2006 Lebanon war. He is likely to stay on - at least in the short term - despite having little or no public support, because it suits few of his immediate political colleagues to see him go.
He quickly seized the wriggle room offered by the commission's interim report last April. It blamed the armed forces leadership equally for the mistakes and misjudgments made in deciding to go to war after the Lebanese guerrilla movement Hizbullah killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two more. As a result the defence minister and army chief of staff resigned. On this occasion Mr Olmert can justify staying on because the expected commission criticism of his decision in the last stages of the conflict to order a military assault in which 33 Israeli soldiers died did not materialise. Instead it effectively vindicated him by saying the action was necessary.
As a result pressure on Labor leader Ehud Barak to withdraw from the cabinet if Mr Olmert stays on sharply diminished last night. Labor activists critical of the war were warned that should the coalition break up the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks sponsored by the United States would be a first casualty. That is a higher priority for them. In addition, all concerned in this vulnerable grand coalition realise that if elections were called they would probably lose out to an alternative right-wing coalition with Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister. Otherwise elections are not due until 2010.
This was a classical war of choice which went seriously wrong for Israel. As the commission says, "Israel initiated a long war, which ended without its clear military victory. A semi-military organisation of a few thousand men resisted, for a few weeks, the strongest army in the Middle East . . . we found serious failings and shortcomings in the decision-making processes and staff-work in the political and the military echelons and their interface." Israel relied on overwhelming air power which brought wanton destruction to Lebanon's infrastructure, and caused a million people to flee the south. In Israel, too, a million people sought refuge from the 4,000 Hizbullah rockets, allowing that movement to claim a victory against overwhelming odds. Casualties included 1,200 Lebanese and 159 Israelis.
A United Nations force led by French troops and including an Irish contingent has kept the peace since then on the Israel-Lebanon border.