Luttwak sees Iran as leading. This is certainly the conventional wisdom:
Instead of passively awaiting the inevitable sanctions, Iran's leaders decided to start a Middle East crisis of their own by organizing attacks against Israel. Their aim is to discourage the US and the Europeans from starting another crisis against themselves - financial markets and everyday politics in Europe especially can only tolerate so much conflict.
That gambit could also bring another benefit. Iran's claim to Muslim leadership is now being badly undermined by conflict in Iraq, where Iran supports the Shi'ite militias that are killing Sunnis. Every bloody day of bombings and executions in Iraq reminds Arabs that the Persian leaders of Iran are not Arabs, and it reminds Sunni Muslims everywhere that the Persians are not Sunnis. Attacking Israel overcomes all divisions among Muslims and gains Arab gratitude for Iran's help.
IRAN'S MOVE was prepared in a series of meetings with its local allies, both Hamas of Palestine and the Hizbullah of Lebanon. Khaled Mashaal, the overall Hamas leader who remains safely in Damascus under Syrian protection, traveled to Teheran at one point, where he received some $50 million in cash.
Peters thinks Iran is following:
AS soon as Hezbollah commandos snatched two Israeli soldiers from northern Israeli, we were told Iran was behind it. Utterly wrong. That raid was a Hezbollah-conceived copy-cat operation launched impulsively to piggyback on the Hamas seizure of an Israeli soldier in Gaza the week before. The Iranian government was as surprised as anyone.
Iran was dragged into the mess thereafter. But - while President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is always delighted to give we-will-bury you speeches - Iran's best interests just now are served by avoiding violent confrontations with Israel while Tehran tries to persuade the world that its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes. Iran's fanatics don't just want to capture or kill six Israeli soldiers. They want to kill 6 million Jews.
The Iranians were blindsided, but had to back their clients (as Germany had to back Austria in 1914).
Hard to say. I do tend to go with the conventional wisdom on this issue. I think Iran is leading. Just because Luttwak's analysis shows Iran to have badly judged Arab government reaction to the clash doesn't mean that Iran didn't assume that Sunni Arabs would rally even to Shias in a conflict with Israel. Worked in the past, after all.
And Iran may have underestimated Israel's will to respond forcefully to the attacks since Sharon passed from the scene.
But at some point, the question of who started the parade is irrelevant. If Iran rushes to the front even though Hizbollah started it, it becomes Iran's parade.
Was World War I any less a world war because Germany allowed its ally Austria-Hungary to push Germany into offensive war with France which then dragged in Britain? Once Germany decided it had to act, it was Germany's war.
Unless Iran decides to cut its losses and abandon Hizbollah to its fate and the protection of the UN who will in time pressure Israel to stop fighting, this war could widen even if Iran did not direct Hizbollah to attack Israel.
Still, though I think this fight has the potential to widen and the chance of miscalculation increases the longer the fight lasts, a number of experts (via Austin Bay) think the war will not spread.
So if Iran isn't ready to fight Israel and is willing to let Hizbollah get smashed up, if Israel is willing to settle for damaging Hizbollah and lets Syria and Iran off the hook, if we are not ready to confront Iran over other issues yet, and if Syria doesn't panic and strike first fearing they'll get hammered anyway if they sit still, then we may just see a local fight that leaves the major players readying for a future war.
But I'll wait and see how Syrian and Israeli mobilizations go before I call it one way or the other,
