Highly Successful?

Abu Muqawama has been reading the Matt Matthews monograph on the 2006 war this afternoon. It is quite good, and we can recommend it. But one thing bothers Abu Muqawama. Matthews tries to make it sound as if the IDF was aces in counterinsurgency and then just messed up the conventional fight. He describes the IDF counterinsurgency efforts between 2000 and 2006 as "highly successful." Friends, Abu Muqawama can think of a lot of modifiers to describe Israeli counterinsurgency efforts, but "highly successful" ain't one of them.