Hezbollah's action ... mullahs' message

Thursday's (July 13, 2006) damage to an Israeli naval ship off the coast of Lebanon, apparatently by an Iranian-made radar-guided C-802 missile, launched by the Hezbollah forces, has received little attention outside its news worthiness. Its importance is twofold: the Hezbollah can now be regarded as having remote target capabilities and the implicit message this action carries for the US.

In some respect, Hezbollah's fighting with Israel is a showcase and proxy war; one that Hezbollah is fighting not only at the bequest of its paymasters in Tehran, but one to show what would be coming down the pike in the event of a US-Iran war. The devious mullahs in Tehran are sending a message, albeit indirectly to the US that in the event of military hostility, they have developed remote target low-altitude capabilities. This is certainly not lost to the US military planners and all of it is happening in the G8 "background" in St. Petersburgh.

The charge by Israel that Iran has sent more than 100 soliders (more likely, revolutionary guards shock soldiers) to Lebanon should taken as another sign of the widening of the battle field and the proxy nature of this conflict.