Michael Totten is one who thinks that Israel is going after the wrong targets:
Israel has a right - nay, a moral obligation - to defend itself and rescue the kidnapped. But what kind of down-the-rabbit-hole war is this, where the guilty parties - the Baath regime in Syria and the Jihad regime in Iran - sleep warm in their beds while Beirut, a libertine city they hate, takes the punishment for them?
The dictators in the region have always been happy to fight the Israelis to the last Palestinian. Now it looks like they're happy to fight the Israelis to the last Lebanese, too. And why not? Lebanon is a relatively liberal and almost half Christian sort-of democracy. Can't have any of that in the region if you're a totalitarian mullah. It suits Tehran just fine if the Jews slug it out with such people.
Austin Bay concurs:
Unfortunately, Iran has the petro-dollars to reconstitute Hezbollah– unless the Lebanese can act in concert with the Israelis to police terrorists using Lebanese territory. To truly police terrorists in Lebanon –which entails denying them logistics support as well as territory for bases– means regime change in Syria. Dealing Hezbollah more than a temporary defeat means terminating the Assad regime in Damascus.
No doubt about it– the Israelis can seriously damage Hezbollah. Reducing Hezbollah’s arsenals may reduce its local clout in Lebanon. But Syria promotes Hezbollah and Iran finances it.
The Israelis have given no indication they are ready to topple the Assad regime...
And while the JerseyNut stongly feels that if you are to be a sovereign state, you must be responsible for what goes on within your borders, it is a bit of a mystery here as well as to why Israel hasn't at least bitched-smacked Baby Assad; perhaps blowing up a few of his bridges or military installations. To paraphrase Totten, why should the Syrian thugs sleep easy why others fight their battles?
Michael Oren in the Washington Post explains why land for peace is dead (my words, not his) and why Israel must fight:
Paradoxically, Israel has been attacked from the two territories from which it unilaterally withdrew with the approval of much of the international community. Since the pullout of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Hezbollah terrorists have periodically fired rockets at civilian targets in Israel and ambushed soldiers across the U.N.-recognized border. Since the withdrawal from Gaza last year, Hamas and other Palestinian groups have fired more than 1,000 rockets into Israeli territory and have repeatedly attempted to conduct terrorist raids across the border.
Israel refrained from large-scale military reprisals for this aggression, confident of having won international goodwill through its withdrawals and fearful of being dragged back into the Lebanese and Gazan morasses. But Israelis have learned that unprovoked violence against them raises little outcry in the world and that failure to react to isolated acts of terror invites unremitting terror.
And perhaps Israel is closing in on Syria, although the below is much too little:
Israel fired rockets near the Lebanese-Syrian border on Saturday, heightening fears that it could hit Syria as well as Lebanon, in a campaign to dislodge Syrian-backed Hizbollah fighters from its northern border.
Witnesses said Israeli planes fired four rockets at the Masnaa crossing point between the last Lebanese post and the first Syrian army position on the Beirut-Damascus road.
Now just a little bit closer, a little bit closer....
And finally, a warning from Michael Ledden at The Corner:
At that moment, we should want Hizbollah destroyed in both Lebanon and Syria, Assad under attack from his own people for playing this awful game, and Khamenei humiliated as the artefice of a failed operation.
But we have not heard anything about "seizing the moment." We hear lawyer talk and diplotalk, surrender talk and appeasement talk, and there is no action whatsoever. Is this not the time to go after the terrorist training camps in Syria and Iran? What in the world are we waiting for?
And finally, if we dither through this one, the next one will be worse. Maybe much worse. It's not going away. Stability is a mirage...
And where does the UN stand in all this? See their vile complicity with terror here...
UPDATE: More Iranian fingerprints:
Israel charged that Iran, the main sponsor of Hezbollah militants, has 100 troops in Lebanon providing Hezbollah key support — including helping fire a missile Friday that badly damaged an Israeli warship.
It's long past time they mad mullahs of Tehran were sent a message...
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