Now this is more like it - sounding brass and mixing up Niebuhr's Xian Realism with a near beer double daemoneoconic dose of Kaganite "Like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them."
Whoa!
This is especially significant considering Syria recently "...transferred long-range Scud missiles..." to a bona fided terrorist group and totally changed the balance:
"1.Acquiring scuds from Syria would give Hizballah some interesting options in the event of another conflict with Israel. In the past, Hassan Nasrallah has articulated a kind of measured response to Israeli attacks: You bomb southern Lebanon, we rocket northern Israel. You bomb the southern suburbs, we rocket Haifa. You bomb Beirut proper, we rocket Tel Aviv.
"Hizballah's ability to do the latter, of course, depends entirely on whether or not they have the capability to do so and whether or not the IAF is able to knock out Hizballah's long-range rockets early enough in the conflict (as the IAF claims to have done in 2006).
Great and Little Satan would need to know HBA posessed the nasty scuds with a 430 mile range that could strike any or all of Little Satan's sensitive, tender portions.
"2.The problem with this, of course, is that the next Israel-Lebanon war starts when either a) Hizballah or Israel does something stupid or b) Hizballah acquires "equilibrium-breaking" weaponry like powerful long-range rockets or anti-aircraft weaponry. Israel might decide, in the event of the latter, that it must act preemptively and that the very fact that Hizballah possesses such weapons is casus belli enough.
For Syria to repay a realpolitik outreach attempt with a deliberate instability move simply means 44's engagement actually emboldens. Bashar's game shifts attention to Golan Heights - which got lost in all the Palestinian Sympathy Fatigue - an added bonus of hanging with Great Satan's new ambassador in the very same hood the most wanted killer in the world was hanging.
The Iranian-led resistance bloc is becoming better armed and more belligerent by the month so Little Satan may decide to fight a bad war now than a worse one later.
And the overtly girthy rocket rich Body Part Collector General of the resistance bloc is boldly threatening and preparing for one of the most ambitious and destructive wars yet:
Turf in Lebanon cuts both ways - jamming up surveillance and makes stashing a 30 ton monster truck 30 ft long rocket launcher confined to a well known road net and large, innocent civilian rich buildings.
If skyscrapers are exploding in Tel Aviv, Little Satan may not be too particularly concerned exactly where she finds and annihilates scuds.
Conflict could ignite far more mayhem and bloodshed than the 2006 Rocket War and Operation Cast Lead combined and as 44 noted about Great satan
"...when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them.
Like it or not.
How sly of Syria to inspire a situation where Israel takes to the skies and pummels the earth into pockets of steaming ash. People talk of the Middle East being a cauldron near to boiling over, but there is a solution to that...
ReplyDeleteLong Live Israel!
HizbAllah already had missiles of the same range (Zelzal and FROG-7).
ReplyDeleteThey make pretty secondary explosions when the TEL's are hit by JDAM's.
NOTHING
NEW,
R
This could be a the beginning of preparations for the retaliation to follow an Israeli strike on Iran. Syria is probably providing the scuds at Iran's request. We have a big war on the horizon and I fear Israel may stand alone.
ReplyDeleteNice article GSGW - as always, informative and sexy - the complete package!
ReplyDeleteI'd like to cross reference you in my article:
Mr. Obama, let me say this gently - F*CK YOU!
Not as eloquently said as yours perhaps, but my Purple Hearts give me the right to demand more from the person sitting in that chair. I hope you agree.
The acquisition of SCUD missiles by Hezbollah really puzzles me. The typical Hezbollah tactic has been to use very low-signature weapons against Israel...Katyusha rockets were fiendishly difficult to detect.
ReplyDeleteYou can't easily hide a SCUD launcher, unlike the Katyushas. What's the game?
If I were to venture a guess, i'd say the game is rote provocation. See if Israel will "jump the starter's pistol" so to speak - give Hiz the moral high ground to strike in "defense".
ReplyDeleteBut let's not rule out the edge defense of Iran as well. With all the attention they are attracting with new clear weapons manufacture, they might be seeking to widen and deepen their safety net.