The Next Few Weeks

The next few weeks are going to be quite interesting. Expect Israel to fully invade southern Lebanon.
I believe the Iranians (the true powers that be - the man behind the curtain) don't want to see the Israelis succeed in elinating Hezbollah.
Paridoxiaclly, the Iranians are not served by Israeli failure or capitulation either.
Iran needs time. A few months, but they need time. In a few months or weeks they will have enriched enough uranium to begin full scale production of atomic arms.
Odds are, the Iranians already have nukes. They probably bought them from one of the arsenals of the former Soviet Socialist Republics, back in the heady days after the Cold War ended. Problem is, and the only reason the Iranians haven't used one or more: they're not sure that they'd work.

The more the Iranians learn about nuclear arms, the less confident they became in their puchased stockpile of old Soviet missile warheads (or backpack nukes - depending on who you talk to). They have come to realize, and didn't take them long, because the Iranians are by no means stupid) that the weapons they had were degrading. The more they found out, the more they realized that the weapons they had were probably sold to them because they hadn't had their cores refurbished or been maintained in any way aside from having the dust blown of their storage cases before they signed the bill of sale. The arms dealers they bought them from were unscupulous, granted, but surely they realized selling weapons of mass destruction to religious fanatics who border them was probably a bad long term, life descision.

So, the Iranians realize that the weapons they have are probably not going to work as advertized. Knowing full well that if used and the weapons turned out to fizzle, they could tell the world that they were just low level dirty bombs, but the Nuclear powers would quickly figure out that the Iranians were attempting to initate a nuclear exchange and would then, especially Russia, commence pounding the absolute shit out of them, and with a quickness. Russia would act, knowing the weapon could be eventually traced back to them, and knowing that it could conveniently claim the Iranian oil fields in a post conflict world.
So the Iranians want the Israeli / Lebanese conflict to continue at a low roar for a while.

If the Lebanese Military decides to enter into the fighting on the side of Hezbollah, they'll get spanked and fast. Israel has air dominance, and their artillery is excellent. Israeli have excellent armor and a disciplined, professional infantry. Expect the Islamo-Nazis to use burned out Lebanese Army vehicles as containers for their IED's.

Watch for every time the situation begins to cool off, something on the Islamic side of things will push it back the other way. Iran needs this conflict until it can announce to the world that it can field a full production line of atomic weapons. Then they will try to hijack the world economy. Then the toothless international community will cower behind the US, wondering why we didn't act sooner to remove the threat to world peace.


Author's Note: I use the term Islamo-Nazi, due to the fact that the term Islamo-fascist doesn't carry the implied anti-semitic, genocidal bent that the modern Wahabist and Persian Nationalist movements have assumed fully. I also consider the Nazis to be what they are - a stain on humanity and the most vile force of evil that ever existed. I will not let my children play violent video games - unless the figures in the gun sight are wearing the uniform of the Waffen SS - then I will lean in and tell them, "Center of mass, my dears, center of mass!"