Lebanon Watch
Michael Totten notices that the Lebanese daily newspaper Al Mustaqbal reports a limited Syrian invasion of Lebanon. Ynet News reports that Syria is warning its citizens that Lebanon "will erupt" within a week. The Counterterrorism Blog has background.
There have been a number of "eruption warnings" from Lebanon, though none of them have fully materialized. That doesn't mean this won't. The question is what might be different this time that could lead to large scale hostilities. One possible answer is the scale of re-armament by Hezbollah. In a situation where intentions are opaque, but are traditionally hostile or at least testy, then the thing to watch is capability. The tempers are known to be bad, so the key question whether the hombres have enough rounds in their crossed bandoliers. Perhaps Hezbollah and Syria now feel they have the capability to restart the fireworks. If so, then UNIFIL's mission will have failed, though that would not be surprising. Nothing to do but watch and wait.
Nothing follows.
posted by wretchardthecat at 7/09/2007 06:33:00 PM
5 Comments:
Watch, and wait...
...and hope that Israel has put in place the required reforms to allow it to fight a 4GW opponent and win.
In the past Israel has shown such capability to spring back. Hopefully they will have learned the right lessons. Maybe we can take a page out of their playbook.
(incidentally, I doubt "redeployment" will be considered)
Debka also has a short article on this saying:
Iran, Syria Hizballah...intend the eruption to throw off track the July 16 UN Security Council session called to castigate their non-implementation of its Resolution 1701, especially their defiance of the clauses banning the continued arms smuggling to Hizballah from Iran and Syria.
I guess attacking Lebanon is safer than attacking Israel.
Too often the International Peace force becomes hostages to the "bad guys" to guarantee the good behavior of the civilized world. It's a fair bet Syria and Iran believe they can saw off the head of living Lebanon--in the best tradition of their terrorist minions--and the U.S. and Israel will be held back by the presence of the peace keeping hostages. It's a good wager for them, and the Lebanese army dispatched the Islamists in the refugee camps rather easily so--more force is needed. Hisballah backed by the Syrian Army should do the trick.
Unfortunately for them Sarko in France has his tough guy image to protect, the Chinese need to improve their image after trying to poison not just their customers but their customer's pets and even Putin may think a military offensive backed by Iran may be too much.
The Syrian troops in Lebanon can be bombed. But who will do the honors? Is the French aircraft carrier sea worthy? Do the jets have engines and wings? Or is it just Red Bull.
USS Enterprise is joining USS Stennis and USS Nitmitz off the coast of Iran right now.
'The Enterprise is heading to Fifth Fleet waters and is not replacing any other ships in the area,' a US Navy spokesperson told Agence France-Presse without elaborating.
A fourth is rumored to be on its way. Guns of August anyone?
Smitten Eagle Sir,
I'm watching carefully and waiting with bated breath.
The military institution I have most faith in today is USMC and your opening paragraph is why.
In the earlier thread about Michael Yon's Baked Baby story a poster quoted a passage from the play Mrs. Miniver. It sums up nicely this World War in the context of WWII. 4GW is descibed in that passage from a 2GW.
But alas, Captain, 4GW was always with us. Boyd and his desciples codified it and you as a United States Marine, being a member of the most 4GW oriented U.S. military service are in the shit carrying it out.
I am grateful for your service and you and your cohorts are in my prayers daily.
May Allah bless your efforts as allies of true Islam.
Salaam eleikum!
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