With the political turmoil of Iraq here in the US and the imminent withdrawal of the US from Iraq, the cards are being shuffled rapidly as players place new bets on the table.
Let's take a look at the pieces and see what they show us.
Right now, as I speak, the ongoing war against the Siniora government in Lebanon continues. The Lebanese Army has been unable, so far, to dislodge and defeat Fatah al-Islam and the other Palestinian radical groups, who are being heavily armed by Syria.
It's off the front pages, but Hezbollah still continues its virtual siege of the Siniora government offices in Beirut, an dthe Syrian army now has a heavily fortified enclave in Lebanon's territory, in the Bek'aa Valley, a major Hezbollah base.
Notice also that, thus far, Hezbollah has not actively engaged in attacking the Siniora government with its military. They have concentrated on re-arming and building up their forces.
One year after the war with Israel, Hezbollah is actually in better military shape than before the war. Iran and Syria, have replenished Hezbollah's rocket arsenal, and they now have an estimated 18,000 rockets and missiles. They also now have a levy of rocket launching teams trained and ready, as well as `bunkers' in fortiufied civilian dwellings.
UNIFIL has done nothing to impeded this, or to stop the ongoing flow of Hezbollah fighters to Iran and Syria for training.
While Sheik Nasrullah is the charismatic leader of Hezbollah, the real military chief and liaison between Hezbollah, Iran, Syria and al-Qaeda is our old friend Imad Mugniyeh, assisted by Ibrahim Aqil.
The reason for this buildup in forces seems obvious to me.
Mid-July will be an especially auspicious time for Lebanon and Syria. The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to discuss the failure thus far of Security Council Resolution 1701 on July 16, and discuss ways for preventing weaponry from crossing the borders.
Even more important is the report due from Serge Brammertz to the UN on the Hariri assassination..which is expected to implicate Syria and important members of the Assad regime.
In addition, there is major instability in Iran and with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
If I had to hazard a guess, I would bet on Lebanon falling apart fairly soon, with Hezbollah and Syria either taking over under a figurehead like Syrian puppet Michael Aoun or setting up a `Hezbollahstan' in part of the country. The Bush Administration, busy with Iraq, would be able to do little about it.
While war with Israel is definitely in the making, I think Iran, Syria and Hezbollah will deal with Siniora first.
To me, one element that Iran, Syria and Hezbollah would probably try to put in place before a strike against Israel would be a new unity agreement between Hamas and Fatah. That would expose Israel to attack on all fronts. And I wouldn't be surprised to see that agreement happen fairly quickly.
For one thing, I see the Saudis and Iran as being much more on the same page than we think. Historically, the Sunnis and Shia have usually been willing to unite against common enemies/victims for the sake of jihad...and I'm convinced that their `spheres of influence' have already been agreed on, in the infamous Riyadh summit I wrote about.
One of my notorious little birdies told me that Iran and the Saudis are engaged in slapping around Hamas and Fatah in an effort to get them to kiss and make up and unite against the hated Jews as I write this at secret conferences on neutral ground in Europe. Given that the Saudis and Iran control a lot of Hamas' financing and Abbas is so weak on the ground in Judea and Samaria, I think they will likely be successful in putting Hamas and Fatah back together.
I see the war against Israel coming in August or September, after the Palestinians re-unite, Siniora is dealt with and Congress does it's best to legislate a defeat for the US in Iraq.
That, by the way, is why Iran is digging tunnels like a bunch of moles on crack for their nuclear facilities. They still fear that Bush will deliver a little Shock and Awe to them before moving our troops out of Iraq, which is what they would do if the positions were reversed.
That could happen. As I write this, we have the USS Enterprise en route to the Persian Gulf to join the USS Stennis and USS Nimitz near Iran.
While it would make enormous common sense to strike Iran before departing Iraq,( and actually, would be the only way we could actually leave having accomplished much) I'm not sure the president is prepared to do that, given the political climate right now.
Some more rounds of useless diplomacy are far more likely until he's able to leave the White House,but I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised.
We're in for some interesting times in the Middle East, to say the least.
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