BEIRUT (Reuters) — By surviving a ferocious month-long conflict with Israel, Hizbollah has foiled US-Israeli hopes of destroying the Lebanese Shi’ite Muslim group and emboldened its allies in Iran and Syria.The day after a tenuous UN truce took hold in Lebanon, Iran and Syria made rhetorical hay from the outcome of the war. Senior Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami called it a “disgraceful defeat” for the United States and Israel, and said Iran would fire missiles at Tel Aviv if it came under attack.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Hizbollah’s resistance to the Israeli onslaught would make the Jewish state think twice before pursuing “terrorist policies” in the region.

Both struck a note of clear defiance, the day after US President George W. Bush portrayed the Lebanon conflict as “part of a broader struggle between freedom and terror”.

In a trial of strength between the allies of the United States and Iran, Israel failed to dismantle or disarm Hizbollah, or even to push it beyond the Litani River, about 13 miles from the border, despite an intense bombing campaign.

Israel says it killed about 530 guerrillas — Hizbollah admits losing only 80 dead — and destroyed many rocket launchers. But it did not stop rocket fire on northern Israel or force Hizbollah to free the two soldiers it seized on July 12, even though the Israeli army suffered 117 dead and 450 wounded. “This has exposed Israel’s weakness,” said Mustafa Alani, a security analyst at Dubai’s Gulf Research Center. “For all its military might, it lacks the capability to sustain a conflict of this kind. In that sense, Hizbollah’s strategy succeeded.”

If it was a military setback for Israel, it was a resounding political defeat for the Bush administration, Alani argued.

“It has shown that Iranian intervention is producing results in Lebanon as well as in Iraq,” he said. “The message is that pressuring Iran will not be easy. If it is attacked or placed under UN sanctions, it can make things costly for others.”

Shi’ite Iran has vowed to expand its nuclear fuel work despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding that the Islamic Republic desist by August 31 or face possible sanctions.

Oussama Safa, of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, said that while the Lebanon war had dented Israel’s morale and military image, Hizbollah rockets had also failed to deter Israel and the threat they posed was now a known quantity.

But he said Israel’s failure to uproot Hizbollah had raised questions about its value as a US strategic ally. “The Iranians have badly rattled the Israelis’ cage,” he added.

Hizbollah may have won plaudits in Tehran and Damascus, but it must also translate its battlefield endurance into gains at home, where many Christians, Sunni Muslims and Druze were aghast at Lebanon being dragged into a devastating war.

“Now the challenge is the extent of agreement on the implementation of (Security Council resolution) 1701,” said Christian legislator and political scientist Farid al-Khazen.

The resolution calls for the Lebanese army and an expanded UN peacekeeping force to deploy south of the Litani as Israeli forces withdraw. Hizbollah is to have no armed presence there.

Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has declared his fighters will cooperate with the UN and Lebanese deployment, but sharply rebuffed any idea that they will disarm.

“Hizbollah’s plan is for the fighters and weapons to be invisible, in standby mode,” said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Lebanese expert on the group. “This is not equivalent to disarmament.”

Turning a blind eye to Hizbollah’s hidden weapons may not suit Israel, the United States or the European nations expected to lead the bigger UN troop mission. But the last month has proved that no one can disarm the group by force.

The weak Beirut government, hostage to Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system, may be willing to fudge the issue to preserve a facade of unity, and to defer debating Hizbollah’s arms pending a wider deal that would hinge on Israel quitting the disputed Shebaa Farms border area, which Lebanon claims. That would remove one of Hizbollah’s main reasons for still fighting Israel six years after it withdrew from Lebanon.

If the truce turns into a UN-monitored ceasefire, Israeli and Hizbollah forces will no longer be eyeball to eyeball across the border, reducing the chance of another flare-up.

Safa said the magnitude of war destruction meant Hizbollah would have to act carefully to maintain internal support and consensus in a Lebanese polity of which it is now an integral part, with two cabinet ministers and 14 members of parliament. But Nasrallah will brook no talk of disarmament, arguing in a speech on Monday night that Hizbollah was far abler than the Lebanese army to resist Israel and that it was “immoral” to raise the issue now and risk arousing Shi’ite wrath.