Another reason to take out Iran

In today's Jerusalem Post Caroline Glick has a bleak, but almost certainly accurate, analysis of the situation in Israel:

Today Israel's leaders claim that Saudi Arabia is our new best friend. The Wahhabis will protect us from Iran and its proxies they promise. It's difficult to see how this view jibes with reality.

Indeed today, in a manner eerily reminiscent of last spring, we are on the precipice of a new war and our leaders stubbornly reject truth for delusion. Unless they acknowledge reality soon, they will again bar the IDF from fighting effectively, again maneuver us into diplomatic isolation and so again lead Israel to defeat.

With this in mind, it is our duty today to take a hard look at reality.

As they did in the months that preceded the outbreak of their jihad in September 2000, for the past several months the Palestinians have been accelerating their preparations for war. On Monday Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Director Yuval Diskin revealed some of those preparations.

Diskin said that in 2006, the Palestinians imported 30 tons of explosives into Gaza from Egypt. Hamas has dug 10 tunnels into the western Negev from which it will be able to launch attacks against the IDF or against civilians. The situation along the breached Gaza-Egypt border is even worse. Diskin referred to the weapons and personnel smuggling tunnels there as "one big rabbit warren."

As the Palestinians prepare themselves for battle, this week they invented their justification for attacking the Jews. Just as they did in September 2000, this week Palestinian and Israeli Arab leaders opened their propaganda campaign for war by falsely accusing Israel of conspiring to destroy the mosques on the Temple Mount.

Like its excavation by the Western Wall that has been going on quietly for the past several months, the Israel Antiquities Authority coordinated its salvage dig by the Mughrabi Gate of the Old City with the Islamic Wakf, the Jordanian government and all other relevant authorities before its archaeologists began their work this week. Everyone understood that the excavation is being conducted 70 meters away from the Temple Mount and will in no way affect it.

But facts are irrelevant. The Arabs are not interested in the facts. They are interested in war. Sheikh Abdullah Nimer Darwish, the head of the southern branch of the Israeli Islamic movement, made this point clearly Thursday morning when he told Israel Radio that the war will likely begin when the heads of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh, return from Mecca. It can be reasonably concluded from Darwish's statement that the Fatah-Hamas unity talks taking place in Mecca have more to do with coordinating the coming jihad than with dividing government ministries in their soon-to-be-formed, Saudi-sponsored terrorist unity government.

However the talks conclude, there is no doubt that the PA is gunning for war with Israel. Palestinian television, which Abbas and Fatah control, has been showing incendiary live and archival footage from the Temple Mount for the past three days. The images are interspersed with speeches by Palestinian and pan-Islamic leaders calling on the Muslim world to protect Al Aksa mosque.

[. . .]

On the Lebanese front, the situation is also frighteningly familiar. Just as last summer the Palestinians and Hezbollah worked in close coordination, so the escalation of hostilities along the border with Lebanon this week shows that their coordination remains high. What is new in the current situation is the hostile role being played by the Lebanese military, and what this role tells us about the nature of the coming war.

Last summer many warned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni that it would be unwise to allow the Lebanese military to deploy to the border. To the extent those forces participated in the last war, they did so on the side of Hezbollah. Lebanese units directed Hezbollah's missile attack against the INS Hanit. They were similarly involved in identifying targets in northern Israel for Hezbollah's rocket units. Forty percent of the soldiers and officers serving in the Lebanese army are Shi'ite and many of them owe their primary allegiance to Hezbollah.

In spite of these warnings, Olmert and Livni did not merely accept the Lebanese army's deployment along the border. They insisted on it. And Wednesday night, when the Lebanese military attacked IDF units operating within sovereign Israel, those who preached caution were proven right. By insisting that the Lebanese army deploy along the border, Olmert and Livni effectively enabled Hezbollah's reassertion of control over south Lebanon.

On the Lebanese front, the situation is also frighteningly familiar. Just as last summer the Palestinians and Hezbollah worked in close coordination, so the escalation of hostilities along the border with Lebanon this week shows that their coordination remains high. What is new in the current situation is the hostile role being played by the Lebanese military, and what this role tells us about the nature of the coming war.

Last summer many warned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni that it would be unwise to allow the Lebanese military to deploy to the border. To the extent those forces participated in the last war, they did so on the side of Hezbollah. Lebanese units directed Hezbollah's missile attack against the INS Hanit. They were similarly involved in identifying targets in northern Israel for Hezbollah's rocket units. Forty percent of the soldiers and officers serving in the Lebanese army are Shi'ite and many of them owe their primary allegiance to Hezbollah.

In spite of these warnings, Olmert and Livni did not merely accept the Lebanese army's deployment along the border. They insisted on it. And Wednesday night, when the Lebanese military attacked IDF units operating within sovereign Israel, those who preached caution were proven right. By insisting that the Lebanese army deploy along the border, Olmert and Livni effectively enabled Hezbollah's reassertion of control over south Lebanon.

It should be recalled that the timing of last summer's war was anything but a coincidence. At the time, Iran ordered Hezbollah to attack Israel two days before the G-8 summit where the world leaders were poised to condemn Iran for refusing to cease its uranium enrichment activities, and a week before the International Atomic Energy Agency was scheduled to refer Iran's nuclear program to the UN Security Council.

So too, today, the escalation of enemy incitement and operations is anything but random. On February 21, IAEA inspectors are scheduled to report to the Security Council that in defiance of Resolution 1737 from two months ago, Iran has not ceased its uranium enrichment activities. In the wake of this report, the sanctions set out in the resolution are supposed to be firmly enforced.

On the Iraqi front, hostilities between the US and Iran escalate daily and signs abound that the much awaited US offensive in Baghdad is about to start. If successful, the offensive will seriously weaken Iranian proxy forces in that country and similarly weaken Iran's influence over the Iraqi government.

All in all, a two-front war against Israel would go a long way towards advancing Iran's interests today.

Go read the rest.

Iran is the spider at the center of the web. It must be killed if anything of lasting value is to be achieved in the Middle East.