00:00And I'm just wondering from an optics point of view and in terms of the hearts and the minds of
00:04the Lebanese people,
00:06whether this perhaps serves Hezbollah's interests in terms of the PR battle,
00:12because they could say, well, we've never killed 90 plus Lebanese children in the space of 10 days.
00:18And look what Israel's just done. How does that play out with the Lebanese public?
00:23Hezbollah's track record is so poor in this country.
00:25And it's not just, of course, their involvement in Lebanon and Syria as well.
00:30And it's not just about the assassinations that they're responsible for.
00:33It's the type of long-term paralysis that led to state failure in Lebanon.
00:38I doubt they can recover in terms of their popularity or their legitimization.
00:44I think that time has passed.
00:46Now, the political party that will probably emerge one day named Hezbollah that divorces itself from Iran if it can
00:53and focuses only on boring Lebanese politics, the way Lebanese politics should play out,
00:59which hasn't happened, I sense that Hezbollah will exist forever.
01:03There will always be a political outfit.
01:05And there will also be, to a degree, the NGO-like aspect to this group.
01:10I think that will stay.
01:11But the military aspect, I don't see that continuing.
01:15Unfortunately for them, I sense that their popularity is so low right now,
01:20it'll be a hard sell to claim this as a victory for anyone,
01:24especially when you're seeing it happen in real time.
01:28Over 800,000 Lebanese are displaced.
01:31For what exactly?
01:32For Ali Khamenei, not one Lebanese would throw their lives away for that person,
01:38for the supreme leader of Iran.
01:40Yet Hezbollah is forced into a battle that Lebanese, by and large, do not support.
01:45I can't see this being spun later as a victory.
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