Remember this?

[ Cross-posted at the Jawa Report ]

While reading about the unfolding chaos in Southern Lebanon, I was reminded of an eerie dispatch from April 2006 (and Part II) by Michael J. Totten called "Everything Could Explode at any Moment." During his travels in 2005, he chats with Israeli soldiers and some locals who all make mention of the fact that the area is infested with Hezbollah, and that it was known that they were planning a major confrontation with Israel:

Lisa and I met Israeli Defense Forces Spokesman Zvika Golan at a base in the north near the border. He told us to follow him in his jeep as he drove to a lookout point next to an IDF watch tower that opened up over Lebanon.

“You aren’t safe here right now,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “The Lebanese army wouldn’t let me anywhere near the border two weeks ago. What’s going on?”

“Hezbollah is planning an operation,” he said.

“How do you know?” I said.

“We know,” he said and nodded.

I knew he was right. The Lebanese intelligence officer more or less told me the same thing. He didn’t say the threat was from Hezbollah, but he didn’t have to.

“What do you think about all this?” I said.

“We really want the Lebanese army on this border,” he said.

It gets even more clairvoyant:

The lieutenant was easily ten years younger than me. But he was so ground down from world-weariness he sounded like a man 30 years older who hadn't slept for three days.

“Any minute now something huge could break out," he said. "I am afraid to go home and leave my soldiers. When Hezbollah decides to do something, they do it. And they’re pretty good at it.”

"What do you think they'll do next?" I said.

“I have no idea," he said. "They could do anything. Kidnapping. Sniper.”

Kidnapping soldiers, as it were. Also this:

“I say this to my guys every morning: Everything could explode at any moment. Just after I said it this morning a bus load of pensioners showed up on a field trip. An old woman brought us some food. It’s crazy. They shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be here.”

“What’s happening here is very unusual," Zvika, the Israeli Defense Forces Spokesman, said. But he wouldn't tell me what, exactly, was so unusual. Shortly after I left the country, a story broke in the Daily Telegraph that explained it.

Iran has moved into South Lebanon. Intelligence agents are helping Hezbollah construct watch towers fitted with one-way bullet-proof windows right next to Israeli army positions.
Here's what one officer said:

This is now Iran's front line with Israel. The Iranians are using Hizbollah to spy on us so that they can collect information for future attacks. And there is very little we can do about it.

More powerful weapons, including missiles with a range of 30 miles, are also being brought in.

Missles struck the city of Haifa today, approximately 30 miles from the positions Totten was reporting from. Check out this report from the UK Times on the conflinct. It mentionins Iranian weapons being used by Hezbollah:

Israeli military officials told The Times that whereas Hezbollah’s Katyushas or Grads had a range of only 20km its Iranian-manufactured Fajer could strike a target 70km away and the later Fajer 5 model 100km, enough to reach far south even of Haifa. They estimated that Hezbollah had 10,000 rockets.

Iran is the real puppetmaster behind this conflict. Syria is complacent - it was occupying much of Lebanon for years up until last year.

The dispatch provides some good coverage of this seldom reported aspect of the seemingly new but very old problem - the Iranian/Syrian supported proxy-war on Israel being fought from Southern Lebanon. Totten notes how the Lebanese government, police and even the army wouldn't even set foot in this "psychotic" region.

Truly prophetic. Israel had this pinned from the beginning - they just weren't sure exactly when and where it would happen. Read it all.

Totten and others saw it coming, and everything apparently has exploded.