The Israeli/Hezbollah war ended less than two weeks ago, but the seeds for the next conflict were sown in its inconclusive ending. 

Hezbollah won the “victory” because it did not lose.  The terror group and its leader Nasrallah stood up to the mighty Israeli army and were left standing.  That alone is enough to be lionized in the Muslim world.  Iran and Syria did not pay the price for supplying and supporting a terror organization.  Their goals of destroying Israel remain intact. 

Now what stands in the way of a re-armed and re-energized Hezbollah throughout southern Lebanon is an ineffectual U.N. resolution backed by national troops with no interest in disarming Hezbollah.  Standing side by side with the U.N. troops will be the Lebanese army – many who are sympathetic to Hezbollah – and who have no plans to disarm or dismantle Hezbollah either. 

The “victory” by Hezbollah energized radical Muslims throughout the Middle East.  One such group emerged this week.  A group called the Hizb al-Tahrir or Liberation Party plans to announce the birth of an Islamic Caliphate in Gaza on Friday, August 25.  The last Islamic caliphate ended when Attaturk, the Turkish leader abolished the Ottoman caliphate in 1922.      

Moshe Sharon, an expert on Islamic Studies at Hebrew University, points out that this goal is not as dormant as some people believe.  Osama bin-Laden has talked about this for a long time.  Sharon believes the group has ties to al-Qaeda and it confirms in his mind that Gaza, one year after Israel’s pullout, will continue to become what he warned it would become: a frontal center for al-Qaeda and world terror.

Hizb al-Tahrir says it wants to re-establish an Islamic caliphate to rule not just Gaza or all of Palestine but the whole world.  This, Sharon says, is the ideology behind the terror.  They want to take over the world and Sharon says the free world needs to recognize the danger this ideology poses. 

Sharon also warns that this ideology poses a mortal threat to Israel--especially following the perceived victory by Hezbollah and the perceived defeat by Israel in their recent conflict.  This Islamic ideology also presents a mortal danger to more moderate Muslim regimes (Egypt, Jordan) that Sharon warns could fall under this steamroller of radical Islam.   

It was this steamroller that was rolling during the just completed Israeli/Hezbollah/Iranian/Syrian war.  It continues to roll and where it goes will determine the shape of the next conflict between the forces of freedom and the forces of tyranny.