Shiite clerics tried to qualify the religious sanction they'd granted the operations. There was Hezbollah's one-time spiritual adviser Hussein Fadlallah:

"We believe that self-martyring operations should only be carried out if they can bring about a political or military change in proportion to the passions that incite a person to make of his body an explosive bomb."

But it was already too late, for it is impossible to prevent the suicide of a society like the one Hezbollah has imposed on the Shia of Lebanon. Nasrallah forecasts the end of Israel, comparing the Zionist entity to a frail spider's web, destined to be swept away. The winds of history are capricious, but what neither Arab bluster, nor Islamic martyrdom nor the "steadfastness" of "resistance" can obscure is that the house Hezbollah built is on the precipice of extinction, by its own handicraft.

Hezbollah seems ascendant, but not so strong that the Israelis would not welcome a Hezbollah takeover of Lebanon, for they believe it would be easy to deter the "Party of God". However, that is precisely why Hezbollah will not take over, because it needs to operate behind the cover of the state, a human shield of more than 3.5 million people.

In other words, the Islamic Resistance is surrounded by enemies - one across the border, another at its back, and yet a third made up of the Middle East Majority, a Sunni sea threatening to engulf them as the Shia have feared for almost 1400 years. The situation is unsustainable, and thus as time is calculated in the region, the days of the death cult are numbered.