The ayatollahs in Tehran, and their man President Ahmadinejad, believe that Iran is destined to be the principal power of the region, and they need not even wait for the day when they have the nuclear weapon. Things are going their way, are they not? Their main opponent, the Great Satan, has its hands full in Iraq. They may regret that they themselves do not have much popular support there, but at least they have rented Moqtada al-Sadr, whose blood-crazed militiamen frighten the population with random murder. Who knows, a sufficiently frustrated United States might decide to throw up its hands and allow Iran to do whatever it likes, as regional powers do.
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Which is where Israel comes in. Putting pressure on Israel offers every prospect of a handsome reward. In Iranian eyes, Israel has recently proved its weakness by evacuating Gaza. And Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert at the time let slip that Israelis want peace because they are tired. It costs only Palestinian lives to discover how tired that might be. For this purpose, Iran has rented Hamas after already controlling Hezbollah in Lebanon. Activate them both, then, in a pincer with fronts to the north and south, abduct as many Israeli soldiers as possible, and test Olmert’s untested nerve. Tehran can go as far as it dares in the absolute certainty that the United Nations, the famous Quartet, that commodity known as international opinion, will all immediately and vociferously object if Israel goes as far as it needs. And again, who knows, the United States might be tempted into a Middle East Yalta, a division of the spoils. The Great Satan might have primacy in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Little Satan, leaving Tehran with primacy over Syria and Lebanon, with Iraq 50-50, or maybe 60-40 if the Americans are really choked off.
Israel has to prove that it is a sovereign state, not to be trifled with or subjected to the bargaining of the Middle East bazaar. In short, it has to reinvigorate its deterrent threat against its enemies that has been vitiated by its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and its weak response to provocations since then. Hezbollah demarcates Iran’s front-line with Israel. Its membership is about 8,000, but probably only a quarter of these are in any sense soldiers. They are already firing Katyusha rockets deep into Israel, causing casualties and sending people into shelters. Security Council Resolution 1559 mandates that Hezbollah stand down its militia, and the Lebanese government backed that resolution. In vain. Hezbollah thumbed its nose. Now is the moment for Israel to try to enforce it and get Iran off the back of everyone within reach.
The Hamas leader, Khalid Mashaal, has headquarters in Damascus, protected by the thugocracy of Bashar al-Assad, himself protected by Iran. The overpowering of Hezbollah might lead Hamas’s sponsors around the Middle East to conclude that they can’t engage in a proxy war against Israel with impunity. If not, the targeted killings of Mashaal and his lieutenants in Syria would be appropriate, and other targets there might beckon as well. It is right to eliminate terror masters, and beyond that, the weakening and humiliation of its wretched Syrian stooge would be a suitable reward to Iran for its mischief-making.
