A war with no victors.

Byline: The Register-Guard

It's difficult to gauge how long the day-old cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah will endure, given that leaders on both sides have promised fierce retaliation for any provocation.

Hezbollah insists Israelis remain legitimate targets anywhere within the borders of Lebanon. Israel promises to strike even on the suspicion that its troops may come under attack.

The fragility of the cease-fire after 34 days of furious fighting is understandable. Even a momentary pause in the hostilities forces the Israelis and Lebanese to confront a series of uncomfortable questions: What has been gained, and at what price? Has anything changed?

As to the first question, both Hezbollah and Israel can claim legitimate gains. Hezbollah fought one of the world's greatest armies to a standstill. Israel failed to achieve its goal of securing the territory up to the Litani River, about 18 miles north of the Israeli border.

To put Hezbollah's effort into perspective, in June 1967 it took Israel just six days to defeat the combined armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Following a surprise attack on Yom Kippur in October 1973, Israel took only 18 days to rout Egypt and Syria.

Hezbollah's political stock is soaring, even among Lebanon's Christians. Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has become a folk hero across the Arab world.

For its part, Israel may have finally succeeded in forcing the United Nations and the international community to follow through on the longstanding U.N. resolution demanding disarmament of Hezbollah. Removing the threat of Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel and confiscating the weapons of a terrorist army committed to Israel's destruction would be a huge coup for the Jewish state, one it has not been able to accomplish diplomatically or militarily so far.

Politicians and survivors may well differ on whether the gains by either side were worth the cost. Almost 800 Lebanese civilians, one-third of them children, were killed. The nation's fledgling democracy has been deeply wounded. As many as 1 million Lebanese were forced to flee their homes. Many will return to nothing more than bomb craters and rubble. Lebanon's economy, finally rebounding after decades of civil war, has been set back at least 20 years.

Many of the country's bridges, roads, power plants and houses have been obliterated. Tourism, an emerging bright spot in Lebanon's recovery, could take years to return pre-invasion levels.

Israel also suffered greatly, with 155 killed and hundreds of thousands of Israelis forced to flee or seek refuge in bomb shelters. To date, the war has cost Israel the equivalent of more than 5 billion U.S. dollars.

More significantly, Israel flatly failed in its main goal to crush and humiliate Hezbollah. A war that was meant to last a few days dragged into more than four weeks. Israeli Defense Forces sustained an unusually high rate of casualties and heavy loss of equipment.

Even with the full might of Israel's military bearing down on it, Hezbollah successfully launched more than 4,000 rockets into northern Israel.

The military standoff could have ominous implications for Israel's future. Once seen as invincible by its enemies, Israel's inability to dispatch a guerilla army could prompt more underwriting of non-state resistance forces by Syria and Iran.

As Lebanese refugees return to what's left of their homes, the heady glow of Hezbollah's combat success will fade. There will be a political price to pay, and the famed Hezbollah militia may be history.

There will be political fallout in Israel, as well. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is likely to be the victim of the Israeli public's dismay over the inconclusive military campaign. Olmert's key political objective of withdrawing from most of the West Bank to preserve a Jewish majority population in the state of Israel could be mortally damaged. Israeli pullouts from southern Lebanon and Gaza did nothing to stop cross-border attacks into Israel.

What's changed as a result of the 34-day war? Everything for some, and nothing for most. And that's as it was and ever shall be until there is an independent Palestinian state and the real source of the Arab grievance against Israel is history.