The news that Hizbullah is being supplied with Scud missiles is not surprising. The real surprise would be the party not being determined to be fully militarily ready amid the current conditions that dominate the Middle East. When Israeli escalation reaches its utmost levels, on all fronts, and when what remains of the peace process fails in the region, as a victim of American inability before Netanyahu, and of Arab disarray, and the collapse of peace initiatives, and when all of the needed solutions to Iran's nuclear program are closed off, only missiles are left to fill the vacuum that exists. It is a situation that has come closer to war than it has in a long time, at least since the last confrontation in Lebanon in 2006. The Syrian government hurried to deny the Israeli and American reports about the missiles, meaning that the current tension has come close to drifting toward war. This was confirmed by the statement by the Syrian Foreign Ministry, which said these “claims” were aimed at creating a climate that prepares for a possible Israeli aggression. Against such a campaign, Damascus cannot, irrespective of the truth or falsity of these “claims,” adopt the policy of vagueness that Hizbullah employs vis-à-vis news about its armaments or military capabilities. This is because the Syrians realize that the road to arming Hizbullah is well-known, and not a secret, and that sparking this campaign at a time can only have a motive that goes beyond Hizbullah's weapons, namely sending a message to Damascus about the cost of its current alliance with the party and the likely repercussions for the calm that exists on Lebanon's borders. No one, whether in the United States or elsewhere, will believe that the Scuds will threaten the strategic balance in the region, unless it is in the interest of the Jewish state. These missiles can reach towns in Israel, to a depth of 600 kilometers. They can cause damage to Israel's infrastructure and defense equipment. However, what about Israel's ability to respond to a situation such as this? What side can bear the costs of such a response? The Israeli campaign over the Scuds is not directed at Syria or Hizbullah alone. It is a campaign that targets the Obama administration as well. This administration has conducted a policy of openness toward Damascus, which now finds itself accused by Israel of being open to “the wrong address.” Israeli President Shimon Peres referred to this when he said that “Syria claims it wants peace while at the same time it delivers Scuds to Hizbullah whose only goal is to threaten the state of Israel.” Thus, it is no coincidence that this campaign was launched against Syria, while the process of approving the appointment of a new American ambassador to Damascus is taking its legal course in the halls of Congress, and while American pressure is continuing on Israel to prevent it from launching a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. All of the “concerned” parties, from the United States and France in the west, to Syria and Iran in the east, not to mention Hizbullah, naturally, find something to say about this matter, while the Lebanese government is the only mute party. This is the difficult position that the American administration has put Lebanon in, when it warned that Hizbullah's enhancement of its arsenal is causing Lebanon to face true dangers.
