Myths About Afghanistan
Victor Davis Hanson on whether Afghanistan is really the "graveyard of empires ..."
It is being reported that:
The London-based Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayat reported Saturday that “Washington has information according to which Israel gave Damascus 72 hours to stop Hizbullah’s activity along the Lebanon-Israel border and bring about the release the two kidnapped IDF soldiers or it would launch an offensive with disastrous consequences.�
The report said “a senior Pentagon source warned that should the Arab world and international community fail in the efforts to convince Syria to pressure Hizbullah into releasing the soldiers and halt the current escalation Israel may attack targets in the country.�
Al-Hayat quoted the source as saying that “the US cannot rule out the possibility of an Israeli strike in Syria,� this despite the fact that the Bush administration has asked Israel to “refrain from any military activity that may result in civilian casualties.�
So it would appear that the strikes so far are preparatory. The real front begins 72 hours from the time of notification of Damascus by Israel.
Does anyone out there besides me think that this is absolute suicide by Hezbollah? I have watched Israel my whole life on this kind of thing. Israel is not hamstrung by the left (like we are in the U.S.) when her very existence is at stake. There might be internecine struggles within Israel over all sorts of things, but they unite behind their leaders when attacked from the outside. We should expect overwhelming force to be applied, and this, within 72 hours.
On July 15, 2006 at 3:43 pm, Mike said:
I don’t think Hezbollah has any control over it anymore. They are so entrenched with the Syrians and Iranians (money, not ideology), that they can’t get away from this one. Iran is clearly trying to force a larger conflict in the ME that would pull us into the fray, stretch our forces even more and further erode public opinion. Heck, it’s not like the UN is going to do anything. It seems like it’s all up to the Russians and Chinese, for now..