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Hassan Nasrallah is a fiendishly clever man. Other than the genocidal maniacs whom he leads and with whom he bonds, few individuals of any kind would have given him a chance to succeed with his plan to create all-out war between Israel and the so-called "Arab nations." But on the surface he seems close to succeeding.
Nasrallah formulated his plan upon the assumption, probably correct, that unless the Israelis could be provoked by some dramatic move into attacking Hezbollah on Lebanese soil and killing women and children in the process, the all-out war he dreamed of fomenting either would not come soon or would never occur. Neither was tolerable to Nasrallah. It was time, he told his fellow genocidal maniacs, to create all-out war now.
Parts of the plan Nasrallah unfolded were already in place. The Syrian and Iranian "governments" and war industries had supplied Hezbollah with scores of rocket launchers and thousands of missiles. The Lebanese "government", the opulent Lebanese populace of northern Lebanon, the 25,000 Americans in Lebanon, and the United Nations (UN) team in Lebanon, had allowed Hezbollah to take complete control of southern Lebanon, gain seats in the Lebanese parliament, and supply a militia that was not only in reality Lebanon's army but also a military force that Syria and Iran could use to cause extreme damage to Israel if not their overall announced goal of destroying "the Jews" altogether. The remaining details of the plan that Nasrallah formulated ought to be evident to anyone by now, but in the event they are not, here they are.
Step one: Hide the rocket launchers in homes, hospitals, and mosques; and place some of them near the UN observation post perched on a hill a short distance from the Israel-Lebanon border, forcing Israel to fire on them at those locations.
Step two: Send troops across the border sufficient in number to kill and kidnap soldiers from a very small group of them at an isolated outpost where they were an easy mark.
Step three: Announce that the purpose had been to kidnap the soldiers so that they could be held as ransom for an exchange of prisoners, and that the killings had occurred only because the soldiers tried to resist.
In formulating that plan, here is what Nasrallah figured: The Israelis would reject the excuse used for the illegal invasion of their territory, would never agree to an exchange of prisoners anyway, and would respond initially by attacking Hezbollah with bombs instead of a troop invasion, so as to minimize deaths and injuries of personnel. In turn, that form of attack on Hezbollah could be used as justification for firing missiles to hit Israeli towns and cities. Once Israel discovered where the launchers were placed, the Israeli militia would try to destroy them even at the cost of killing some civilians and the UN observers who had allowed Hezbollah to get away with Nasrallah's murderous plot.
Given centuries of worldwide prejudice against Jews, especially in "Arab" countries, Israel would be condemned for attacks that kill women and children and UN observers, while Hezbollah, even while raining death and destruction on Israelis through the firing of hundreds and then thousands of missiles not aimed at any specific target, but rather at the heart of cities and towns, would not become the object of such condemnation. That the Israelis were at least aiming at rocket launchers rather than the populace in general, while Hezbollah was aiming only at the general populations of cities and towns, would be ignored. Sympathy would be entirely with Hezbollah. Lebanese, Syrians, Iranians, even Egyptians and Americans, who had previously viewed Hezbollah as a "terrorist" organization too extreme for acceptance, would now begin depicting Hezbollah as heroic warriors against the villainous Jews and therefore deserving of support. Mass demonstrations against Israel/Jews would erupt all over the Near East. Demands would be made for the Lebanese and Syrian armies, and maybe even the Iranian army, to attack Israel.
So far the plan seems to have worked to perfection.
At this time it is certainly dubious that Nasrallah's plan will produce the result he sought: all-out war between the "Arab" countries and Israel. The leaders of Syria and Iran, and not just the government and militia of Lebanon, are extremely fearful that if they attack Israel, in turn they may subject themselves to massive destruction from tactical nuclear weapons which Israel undoubtedly possesses and will use if no other effective means of resistance proves to work. They also have to consider the possibility that the U.S. Government, especially given the positions taken by the commander-in-chief of its militia who has extraordinary powers in times of war, will decide that remaining out of the conflict is no longer a viable option: that since Israel is the only democracy anywhere in the Near East and the only one in that region unconditionally committed to alliance with America, the U.S. must defend Israel.
Of course the leaders of the "Arab" nations are aware, as anyone who is not a hermit is aware, that the American militia's present commander-in-chief, and most of his advisors, may seize any escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to begin a preemptive attack on Iran, accompanied by at least a warning to Syria to stay out of it and stop providing weapons to the "axis of evil" at the cost of being bombed into submission if the Syrians will not obey.
In short, though Nasrallah seems to be near the perfection of his plan and the achievement of his goal, there remains the possibility that he was not as clever as he thought, that there may not be the all-out war which he envisioned as bringing about the destruction of Israel he has long sought, and instead it will be Hezbollah that is destroyed.
Remember the famous line from Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield: "The dog it was that died."
