Hezbollah’s Surprise

In the first public admission that they made a major miscalculation, a senior Hezbollah official said that they had not expected Israel to react as they did to the kidnaping of two soldiers.

A senior Hizbullah official said Tuesday the guerrillas did not expect Israel to react so strongly to its capture of two IDF soldiers this month.

Mahmoud Komati, the deputy chief of the Hezbollah politburo, also said that his group would not lay down arms.

His comments were the first time that a leader from the Islamic militant group has suggested it miscalculated the consequences of the July 12 cross-border raid that seized the two.
"The truth is - let me say this clearly - we didn't even expect (this) response…. that (Israel) would exploit this operation for this big war against us," said Komati.

He said Hizbullah had expected "the usual, limited response" from Israel.

In the past, he said, Israeli responses to Hizbullah actions included sending in commandos into Lebanon and kidnapping Hizbullah officials or briefly targeting specific Hizbullah strongholds in southern Lebanon.

He said his group had also anticipated negotiations to swap the soldiers with three Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails, with Germany acting as a mediator as it has in past prisoner exchanges.

Komati also gave higher casualty figures for the guerrillas than the 11 the group has reported so far in the 13-day-old conflict. He said that as of Monday 25 were killed, including 17 in ground fighting with IDF troops assaulting several south Lebanese border towns since the weekend.

I'm also guessing their casualties are higher than they are letting on.

UPDATE:

UPDATE: Reader_I_Am from Done With Mirrors also sees the problems with proportionality being seen as weakness by bullies. The fact that Hezbollah thought it would be just business as usual shows the mindset.