Retaking Philadelphi: Closing the barn door after the cow escaped?

The IDF is drawing up plans to retake the Philadelphi corridor,a 10-kilometer long narrow strip along the border between Gaza and Egypt (see map). As some of you may recall, in the fall of 2005 US Secretary of State Rice used 'gentle persuasion' to 'convince' Israel to leave the corridor in the tender loving care of European monitors and Egypt, both of which have proved willfully ineffective.But