Let's be realistic here.
Syria and Iran will not directly intervene in this war, it's all between Israel and Huzb Allah. The objectives of this Israeli campaign are political. It will result in political agreements later on that I will not go into.
As far as military matters go, an Israeli invasion of Lebanon would be a complete disaster. If you thought the US presence in Iraq is a quagmire than this is the mother of all quagmires (lemme use expressions similar to the coward Saddam
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Here's the truth, the ability of Huzb Allah to confront an Israeli invasion is much greater than at any previous time (in military terms, popular terms, political terms and whatever terms you can think of). The Katyoushas and other rockets and missiles will keep raining on Israel until the political solutions come at the end of all this.
How can anyone say the IDF will wipe out Huzb Allah or even talk about hurting them badly? I mean the past Israeli experience in Lebanon is the model to follow and that is dwarved by what hell the IDF would go through this time around if there was an invasion.
The Huzb Allah keep getting more and more weapons, also more advanced weaponry since time has gone by (even Zalzel missiles now from Iran that can hit anywhere in Israel) also they have been sitting in south Lebanon and preparing it. Essentially it is IED city in addition to that you have weapons caches and additional explosives probably all over the south and other part of the country. No, the IDF is way too intelligent than to carry out a ground invasion of Lebanon again.
This will be a limited war not in the time it lasts (Cause I really don't see how the Israelis will be able to procclaim victory or even objectives achieved at any point... maybe when Huzb Allah runs out of rockets to launch?
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This campaign is made so that afterwards there will be multi party negotiations that include Huzb Allah's two sponsors and Israel and the US (directly or indirectly) all setting out terms to how things will be after. As for Huzb Allah disarming, I think even this campaign will not result in it, the current Lebanese ruling coalition (the anti-Syrians) have already asked it manye times and this has been debated to death in Lebanon's political community. Even the damage of this campaign is not going to change the people who say that Huzb Allah should stay armed (mostly the Shiite with some Pro-Syrian parties) or the ones who already want the party to disarm (the current government and partners).
This is why I see only one way this will end in a very temporary set of conditions, already the Israelis are toning down the demands (initially it was crush Huzb Allah, now weaken + initially disarm Huzb Allah, now force them out of the firing range of north Israel). This whole issue of a buffer zone being implemented (not by an Israeli occupation, but by a political agreement after this conflict) is problematic at best since now we are seeing Huzb Allah has longer and longer ranged weapons.
The only other thing I can think of is psychological warfare??? And this will compeltely fail if the IDF doesn't understand this yet. Frankly, this airial bombing campaign no matter how much more intense it gets is a walk in the park on a very sunny day in comparison to what the Lebanese civil war was to the people of Lebanon and to the civil war that would break out if the Lebanese army or government tried to disarm Huzb Allah by force (as naively suggested by some Israeli government and military officials, and disengeneously I might add).
I would like to conclude the whole thing with :china: since I've never seen that before and it brought a smile to my face
PS: the whole talk of Israeli ground troops is small incursions into southern areas with quick withdrawals and Special operatiosn not an actual invasion of any kind. Also the Lebanese army Anti Aircraft will have to be the luckiest thing on earth to ever hit an Israeli aircraft...
