Israel will not end its military operation in Lebanon until the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for disarming Hezbollah and deploying the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday.

Annan informed Olmert that he was sending a UN team to the region. Olmert said he would cooperate with the team only if its objective would be to return the Israel Defense Forces soldiers abducted by Hezbollah and the full implementation of Resolution 1559.

Iran and Syria each have long-standing ties to Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim militant group, and no Western government doubts that they provide financial, political and logistical support. But some officials and experts say Hezbollah can also move on its own initiative, for its own reasons, even as it seeks to avoid any move that would displease its chief patrons. ...

Sean McCormack, the chief State Department spokesman, said the countries "subcontract" terrorist attacks through Hezbollah.

"Hezbollah received material support from Iran…. The Syrian government provides political as well as other kinds of support," he said. "So I think it's really time for everybody to acknowledge that these two states do have some measure of control over Hezbollah."

At the same time, even the State Department's annual report on terrorism notes that Hezbollah is capable of independent action.

"Hezbollah is closely allied with Iran and often acts at its behest, but it also can and does act independently," this year's report says.

Israel declared that primary responsibility for the raid lay with the Lebanese government. But officials also have made it clear that they believe Iran and Syria were involved in the attack.

"I don't have evidence that there were direct instructions," said one Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "But they were under the influence of the Iranian government."

"People will say they know why it happened, but they don't know," Bearden said. "Never discount the possibility of things in the Middle East to just spin out of control so easily that people say, 'How did we get here?'

"It is possible it was a gross miscalculation," he said, "which are responsible for many wars in the Middle East."

When Hezbollah attacks Israel — or attacks anybody — it is Iran that is really doing the attacking.

If Iran can get the world to the brink of a war with just a few conventional explosives, a militia of irregulars and some suicide bombers, think what they could do with a real nuke.

Iran is attacking Israel, but it is really attacking us. That's because it knows that the U.S. will come to Israel's aid if things get really rough and eventually any Iran-Israel clash will get very rough.

When the Iranians get nukes this ruckus we're witnessing today will look like a walk in the park. If the Iranians get their nuke which they can strap to their missiles, they can make good on their promise to remove Israel from the map and to bring the world economy to a standstill by blasting, or threatening, the Mideast oil fields.

It seems like a war between Israel and some terror groups. It's really a war by Iran on us.

Presidents and foreign leaders have been trying to bring about a workable peace plan in the Middle East for decades. The sad truth is that none of them are going to work.

There will be no lasting peace in Israel until the Messiah comes back to earth and sets up his earthly kingdom in Jerusalem ...

The pieces and players which could bring about the war of Ezekiel 38 and 39 are moving into place. It couldn’t have happened a few years ago but now the alliances are being formed and arms are being stockpiled as that awful day approaches, the day when all the world will forsake Israel. But the day when the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob fights for her, it will be the bloodiest day in the history of mankind as all but one sixth of the armies that come against Israel will fall on the field of battle.

There is nothing any human being can do to prevent the events which are prophesied in the word of God.

Keep your eyes on Israel, it is the scroll on which the last few pages of history will be written.

Saudi Arabia has blamed "elements" inside Lebanon for the violence with Israel, in unusually frank language directed at Hezbollah and its Iranian backers.

"A distinction must be made between legitimate resistance and uncalculated adventures undertaken by elements inside [Lebanon] and those behind them without recourse to the legal authorities and consulting and co-ordinating with Arab nations," a statement carried by the official news agency SPA said.

As Sy Hersh said at a talk today, and I'm paraphrasing, sometimes big wars get started almost by accident. He also said based on conversations with his Israeli and Lebanese sources this morning, that Israel's goal may be more limited - carving out a 20 - 25 mile buffer or free fire zone into southern Lebanon, to prevent Hezbollah from striking into Israel. ...

A colleague knowledgeable about the region writes, "I have a hard time believing it can get much worse, mostly because of the imbalance of power, even if Israel decides to strike a few targets in Syria. I think there will be a lot of calls for the US to step in and do more than issue statements, dispatch Condi or something... The administration has a big dilemma with Lebanon because they support the government which Israel is accusing of the violence ... The Israelis claim this is all planned by Iran and Syria via Hamas and Hezbollah. And the fact is that both groups have said that they were not responding to the recent killing of civilians in Gaza but that their elaborate kidnapping plots were in the works for months, which the Israelis claim dates to a summit between [Syrian president] Assad and [Iranian president] Ahmadinejad in Damascus in January. This might be a little too neat but expect the drumbeat against Tehran's terrorism sponsoring to escalate as the nuke issue heats up..." (my emphasis)