WHAT MAY REALLY BE GOING ON

IRAN LAUNCHED HEZBOLLAH TO DISTRACT THE WORLD FROM ITS PURSUIT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS. ISRAEL'S DESTRUCTION OF HEZBOLLAH COULD BE A PRELUDE TO THE DESTRUCTION OF IRAN'S NUKES.

Iran Moves First - Edward Luttwak
Instead of passively awaiting the inevitable sanctions, Iran's leaders decided to start a Middle East crisis by organizing attacks against Israel. Hizballah has thrown away its political position in Lebanon because it is obvious to all that it is bringing destruction upon the country. Recently, Iranian leaders threatened Israel with bombardment by Hizballah rockets if Israel attacked Iran's nuclear installations. Israel, therefore, is now using the opportunity of the current fighting to search out and destroy the underground and other hidden sites where Hizballah keeps its missiles. The writer is a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. (Jerusalem Post)

Real Realpolitik (Backspin)
In the American Thinker, James Lewis makes a compelling case that Israel’s battle with Hezbollah is really more about prepping for a possible showdown with Iran later:

We can’t know the outcome of the battle now in progress. However, it is clear that Israel has called Ahmadinejad’s bluff. So far, there are two signs for the world to see: Israeli freedom to act as it wants, and the impotence of Syria and Iran to protect their proxies on the borders of Israel. The IDF is attacking at a time and place of its choosing. If a country the size of Israel is going to tackle Iran, with ten times its population, it must first protect its own rear.

The IDF cannot afford to have more than 10 thousand short-range rockets aimed at
Israel’s population, all in the hands of Iran’s terror proxy, Hezbollah. For strategic reasons alone, therefore, it is imperative to clean out the threat making any direct move again Tehran.

That does not mean the IDF is now committed to attack Bushehr and Natanz, the two most likely nuclear targets in Iran. But if it can cripple the threat from Hezbollah and Hamas for some time to come, it is clearing a strategic space to strike at Iran itself.

If so, could it be that the global divisions over addressing Iran's nuclear program are the real obstacles to the cease-fire Europe eagerly seeks?