A Bloody Nose for Iran

DEBKAfile is a web site written by people rumored to be involved with Israeli intelligence. They often write some pretty wild things, and are not always terribly reliable. Many people don't give them credit for better that 50% accuracy, but I think it is considerably better than that.

Here is an interesting analysis of the various political interests at play in this war.

Bush Wants the Hizballah-Israel War to Give Iran a Bloody Nose

Since the onset of the Israel-Hizballah war on July 12, US president George W. Bush never tires of repeating that Israel has the right to defend itself against terrorists and that it is up to Syria to press Hizballah to stop shooting rockets at Israel.

His secretary of state Condoleezza Rice says she doesn’t see how an immediate ceasefire can solve the Middle East crisis.

UN secretary general Kofi Annan, playing along, is in no hurry to take a hand. “It will be a while before fighting ends,” he says calmly. And Germany’s Angela Merkel thinks the kidnapped Israeli soldiers should be returned before any talk begins.

Britain’s Tony Blair would like to put an international force into southern Lebanon, but Bush put him off none too gently according to an open mike at the G-8 summit. Anyway, south Lebanon already has an international force. It is called UNIFIL, and it has never stopped Hizballah firing a single cross-border shot.

All the world powers assembled in St. Petersburg for the G-8 summit agreed that Hizballah started the war as Tehran’s proxy terrorist arm. They picked up on the attitude of the US president, who is telling Israel: Let it run; but keep civilian casualties down and don’t kick too much Lebanese infrastructure.

Even Arab governments, which automatically fought any Israeli military action in the past, have formed a solid Sunni Muslim front, led by Saudi Arabia, which is content to watch the Shite Hizballah take a beating and the burgeoning Shiite assertiveness in the region squashed.

The Olmert government is eagerly exploiting this leisurely international climate to smash as much of Hizballah’s terror machine as he can before Washington holds up a stop sign. Monday, July 17, a clutch of would-be ceasefire brokers descended on Beirut and Jerusalem. None came with Bush’s nod, so they will not get very far.

That is just the introduction, there is much more. Read it all, it is fascinating.