Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Is Iran behind all this?
I saw on CNN that Israel threatened to attack Syria, and that Iran threatened to take action if it did. This made me think, can Iran be behind Hezbollah's actions? It's well-known that Iran is Hezbollah's main source of arms and that they share a Shia form of Islamism.
Let's look at the situation from Ahmadinejad's point of view. He needs war with an outsider aggressor in order to preserve his regime. Bush used to be the perfect enemy, but now he's slowly backing off. Absent the US as an enemy, the next best thing is Israel. The best way to anger Israel is to use Hezbollah, which provides Iran with some political cover, and which conveniently has Syrian support.
In my previous post about the bombing match, I said Hezbollah upped the ante after Hamas kidnapped an IDF soldier. It may be the case: the week-long gap between the two kidnappings suggests that Hezbollah may have planned its initial strike right after Hamas's. But that alone does not explain why Hezbollah is suddenly interested in Israel, after a long hiatus in which it was interested primarily in winning power in the Lebanese government.
Militaries, and military-dominated governments such as Israel's, have a penchant for viewing force as the solution to every problem. Never mind that giving Ahmadinejad the ability to say that Iran is threatened by outsiders is almost the dictionary definition of "actions against Israel's self-interest"; the IDF is going to take every opportunity to escalate the conflict.
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Evidence please?
Wild speculation about Iran's, and Hezbollah's motives might be fun and exciting, but it'd be nice if it was backed up with something substantial. Not everyone is convinced by the mere accusation:
The Rules of the Game
Lebanese brace for Israel's signature strategy: collective punishment
Caught with its pants down
Israel's shockingly disproportionate response may seem to indicate that this is something larger than a mere border skirmish, but it also might just be Israel doing what Israel has been known to do from time to time, be it to the Lebanese or the Palastinians
I know it's circumstantial
That's why I framed it as a question, rather than as a foolproof assertion.
The Haaretz article you link to is a bit too paranoid to my taste; in particular, it posits that Iran is coordinating both Hezbollah and Hamas, even though Hamas is Sunni and largely independent. The TAP article makes a lot of sense, but for its central claim that Hezbollah's kidnapping was opportunistic. I don't have a link to this - I think I saw it on CNN but I'm not sure - but it appears that the kidnapping was planned in advance.
So it's important to ask why Hezbollah did it - that is, why it struck after years of sitzkrieg. Obviously substantial evidence for anything is hard to come by, and given what I know it makes little sense to base policy on one theory.
The escalator
Well I would imagine that Iran will not push Israel too far since the common wisdom says they have nuclear weapons, and I would think the will to use them should they feel sufficiently threatened. I am just wondering when we are going to see another Grenada maneuver.
"Oh, there are Americans in danger in Lebanon!"
"Quick call the pentagon. We must invade and save those poor souls!"
Years later...
"Leaving? No, we like the beaches here."
Ah, well.
Just another bloody day on assylum Earth.