Beseiging the Castle
Blue Crab Boulevard notes "Hamas has wasted no time at all in declaring where they stand - they will not negotiate with Abbas or Fatah in any way ... They plan on doing all their talking with the sword and the rifle." American Digest predicts that "given the triumphant announcement that the moment of Islamic Rule had finally arrived in Gaza, it is just going to be one fresh hell a day after another for any innocent people trapped there."
About a year ago, the IDF shot down a Hezbollah drone heading in from the sea towards Israel. It didn't show much capability, but it demonstrate intent. Now, with Hamas firmly in Gaza, Iran is in a position to open a two front war on Israel. Although the forces at their disposal are relatively puny, any subsequent attacks will be on Israel itself. They will be strikes at the core of Israel itself. On the other hand, the Ayatollahs themselves seem to have little fear that Iran will be attacked directly. Well that's one way to define Asymmetrical Warfare. Iran shoots at the West and Western politicians beg for an opportunity to demonstrate their goodwill towards the Ayatollahs.
Nothing follows.
posted by wretchardthecat at 6/14/2007 06:51:00 PM
2 Comments:
My question is could/would/should Israel try to choke off Gaza from the outside so as to prevent the build-up of more arms, especially heavy arms and/or materials for rocket production? I'd imagine they could blockade their coastline, and retake the border with Egypt. This could be a total siege, but I’m really just talking about a very tight arms/materiel embargo.
There would be obvious repercussions for doing this on a preemptive basis, but the repercussions for letting Hamas build up arms and fortify the Strip would seem to be much worse, i.e. Israel may get a repeat of last summer in Lebanon regardless, but perhaps this can be prevented in Gaza. And truthfully, maybe Fatah would even prefer this.
Also, "...the triumphant announcement that the moment of Islamic Rule had finally arrived in Gaza..." makes a lot more sense to me in light of learning more about Qutb.
I'd give the "hat tip" here, but I can't remember off hand who mentioned it (him). But in the comments on a post from Wretchard from a few days ago, a reader mentioned Qutb, and I read a very well written (and hopefully accurate) article on Wikipedia about him. In short he was a mentor for Ayman Zawahiri (of al-Qaeda fame), and more importantly professed many ideas about Islam that would seem to drive today's global jihadi movement.
My point is that if anyone here doesn't know who he is, you'd probably find it worthwhile to read a little about him.
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