Hezbollah appears to be trying to put some distance between it and Iran. From Ted Snider at antiwar.com:
Fearing a widening war, U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and special envoy Amos Hochstein, have fanned out across the Middle East in a concentrated push to prevent it.
Perhaps the greatest fear is that, knowing they will not apply their leverage to stop a wider war once it starts, the United States is desperately trying to stop it before it does. The public is being prepared for such an outcome with the appearance of the ominously familiar words “unprovoked” and “the right to defend itself.”
The risk of a widening war comes from conflict with Yemen’s Houthi in the Red Sea and Lebanon’s Hezbollah on the northern border with Israel. The northern border has recently been brought to a boil by increased shelling into Israel and Lebanon and, especially, the killing of al-Arouri, the deputy chief of Hamas’ political wing, deep inside Lebanon in a suburb of Beirut. UN international law experts, including the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, Ben Saul, have suggested that the killing breaches international law and constitutes an extrajudicial killing. Hezbollah carried out its promise to respond on the battlefield by firing 62 rockets that extensively damaged northern Israel’s Mt. Meron strategic base, the Air Force’s northern air control unit. Israel then responded with the killing of Ali Hussein Burji, the commander of an aerial drone unit who Israel says orchestrated the attack on the Mt. Meron base. Hezbollah, however, denies the Israeli claim that the commander was killed, claiming that the person who was killed was an ordinary fighter.
The war on Israel’s border could widen in two waves. The first could see it flow over the border into a full-scale war with Hezbollah. The second could draw Iran into the war. While the former is dangerous enough in the region, the latter risks international calamity as U.S. officials fear it could draw the United States into the war.
