This morning's conference call - organized by Friends Of Likud - was with former Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon. He discussed a bunch of other things above and beyond Hezbollah: post-operation Gaza scenarios, Arab-Israel fifth column considerations, peace process strategy, etc. But I have a bunch of Hezbollah links that I need to dump and - since he's a recognized Lebanon expert - this is as good a hook as any.

The good news is that he was unequivocal that Hezbollah doesn't have the wherewithal to attack Israel right now. It's not that they don't want to. It's just that they're deterred by a potential Israeli response. For all that the Lebanon II ground campaign was unsuccessful, the IAF proved that it can level urban infrastructure at will. Cast Lead, in turn, proved that the Israeli government is willing to let it.

The bad news is that Ya'alon never thought Hezbollah would launch Lebanon II either. His famous line was that their Iranian-supplied missiles would rust in launchers. 4,000 strikes on Israeli cities later, not so much. Plus Israel's current Head of Military Intelligence, Amos Yadlin, thinks that Hezbollah intervention is a real possibility:

Head of Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin told the cabinet Sunday that Hezbollah might carry out a limited attack in the north via a Palestinian terror group in response to the Israel Defense Forces ground operation now underway in Gaza. A government source in Jerusalem said that the military is on high alert in the north against a flare-up. The source said many reservists have been called up for service in the north... "Hezbollah might carry out a low-profile attack by means of a Palestinian organization that would be limited and not set the border alight," Yadlin said. He added that forces also remained on high alert in light of a possible Hezbollah strike against an Israeli target abroad." He said the date to watch for was February 14, the date last year on which senior Hezbollah operative Imad Mughniyeh was assassinated.

I didn't blog this report when it came out but a US army study concluded that Hezbollah is the very model of an effective post-conventional fighting force. And Nasrallah is painting himself into a corner: the more vociferously he demands Arab action against Israel the more striking it becomes that Hezbollah is sitting on the sidelines. If he keeps up his strutting Hezbollah will have to launch at least some token rockets. The domestic cost shouldn't be a factor: they're already functionally in control of Lebanon and, according to the logic of US foreign policy sophisticates, any Israeli retaliation would only help them. So why haven't they attacked? The x-factor is how much Iran wants to keep them in reserve as a deterrent against an IAF attack on Natanz. By all indications: a lot.

The Israelis, meanwhile, might have their own reasons for wanting to take shots at Hezbollah - and not all of them are military. Any conflict between the two would nonetheless leave northern Israel and most of Lebanon devastated. Which is one of many, many reasons why the Lebanese government is trying to prevent Hezbollah from heating up the border. Lebanese officials say their efforts are working. But Barack also said that Israel wouldn't retaliate against Hamas - right up until Israel retaliated Hamas.

So we're back where we started: they're a bunch of genocidal fanatics and anything is possible.

References and previously after the jump...