Girding for war with Israel?

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Recent events serve as a reminder of how menacing behavior from Iran and Syria keeps the Middle East on a hair trigger. On Tuesday, Israel learned that Hezbollah was rapidly rebuilding its military capabilities and preparing for renewed conflict with Israel. The next morning, a London-based Arab newspaper reported that Syria was concentrating troops and tanks along its border with Lebanon and had massed troops in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley in preparation for an Israeli attack. Syrian officials denied the report and suggested that Israel and the United States were conspiring to divert attention from their own problems. The question remains shrouded in mystery.

On Wednesday, the Israeli government's security cabinet ordered that gas masks be distributed to the public. Two days from now, the Israel Police, the Defense Ministry, the Israel Defense Force and civilian emergency services will stage the largest emergency exercise in that nation's history — an event that will include simulated military attacks, some with nonconventional missiles. Although officials say that the emergency drill is not a response to any specific intelligence about a coming attack, it's not difficult to see why the government is worried. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad refuses to halt his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and routinely calls for Israel's destruction. Iran and Syria have amassed tens of thousands of long- and medium-range ballistic missiles which can reach Israel. Both regimes support Hezbollah, which blames Israel for killing Imad Mugniyeh, its former security boss, and is vowing revenge.

Iran has sent mortars to Hamas-controlled Gaza that are much more deadly than the relatively crude Qassam rockets that terrorists are using to shell Israel. These mortars reportedly travel so fast that the early warning system deployed by Israel cannot stop them. Israeli defense officials also maintain that Egypt's reopening of the Rafah border crossing on Tuesday allowed terrorists to return to Gaza after travelling abroad for training (probably in Iran or Syria). Meanwhile, Iran has deployed high-technology equipment on Syrian territory to listen to Israeli military communications.

As bleak as all of the above really is, it does not mean that war is imminent. This sort of behavior has been occurring for decades and usually stops well short of all-out war — but not always, because tensions are high and people miscalculate with tragic results. In the spring of 1967, for example, the Six-Day War was proceeded by months of provocative (and false) Soviet warnings to Egypt about a planned Israeli attack on Syria. Two years ago, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah calculated that he could attack and kidnap Israeli troops from Israeli soil without a large-scale Israeli response. He was wrong, and the result was a 34-day-long war with Israel. With their provocative behavior on so many fronts, Tehran and Damascus are playing with fire.