Closer to War

… or already there?
By Callimachus
Grist for the conversation mill. I don’t necessarily agree with all or any of what’s said in all or any of these, but they advance arguments worth considering, or refuting:
Ammar Abdulhamid:

All wishful thinking aside, I just don’t think Israel is going to lose this round, and I think the going-ons in Lebanon are only a prelude for the eventual and now inevitable confrontation with Syria, with all sort of disastrous implications and consequences for our people.
Some people see this differently I know, they see the Assads and Mullahs emerging as serious contenders in the arena once again, and that they have embarrassed the US and Israel. I kindly disagree. But, be that as it may, the winner of this round notwithstanding, we, the people, are the ones who will get screwed.

Doha:

Sayyid Nasrallah is still alive and declaring an open war. Where is our President? Where are our Ministers? Prime Minister? Members of Parliament?
All these institutions and the guardians of these institutions are obsolete at this point. Nasrallah is leading the show. He’s defying everything and everyone. He is assuming the position of the guardian of the Prophet’s Family, against all odds. This is not about Lebanon anymore; this is about Nasrallah’s pride.

Michael Ledeen:

No one should have any lingering doubts about what’s going on in the Middle East. It’s war, and it now runs from Gaza into Israel, through Lebanon and thence to Iraq via Syria. There are different instruments, ranging from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon and on to the multifaceted “insurgency” in Iraq. But there is a common prime mover, and that is the Iranian mullahcracy, the revolutionary Islamic fascist state that declared war on us 27 years ago and has yet to be held accountable.

Mark Perry:

Hezbollah and Israel stand along this border every day observing each other through binoculars and waiting for an opportunity to kill each other. They are at war. They have been for 25 years, no one ever declared a cease-fire between them. … They stand on the border every day and just wait for an opportunity. And on Tuesday morning there were two Humvees full of Israeli soldiers, not under observation from the Israeli side, not under covering fire, sitting out there all alone. The Hezbollah militia commander just couldn’t believe it — so he went and got them.
The Israeli captain in charge of that unit knew he had really screwed up, so he sent an armored personnel carrier to go get them in hot pursuit, and Hezbollah led them right through a minefield.
Now if you’re sitting in Tehran or Damascus or Beirut, and you are part of the terrorist Politburo so to speak, you have a choice. With your head sunk in your hands, thinking “Oh my God,” you can either give [the kidnapped soldiers] back and say “Oops, sorry, wrong time” or you can say, “Hey, this is war.”
It is absolutely ridiculous to believe that the Hezbollah commander on the ground said Tuesday morning, “Go get two Israeli soldiers, would you please?”