"All hell broke loose in the Middle East on Wednesday"

Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein at 7:52 AM on July 13, 2006.

Juan Cole fears that Israel's escalating attacks on Lebanon will cause widespread regional violence:

All hell broke loose on Wednesday in the Mideast, with a Hizbullah attack on the Israeli army and Israeli reprisals, and the Israeli dropping of a 500 pound bomb on Gaza. I roundly condemn Hizbullah's criminal and stupid attack on Israel and escalation of a crisis that is already harming ordinary Palestinians on a massive scale. [...] I continue to worry that this outbreak of war in the Levant will exacerbate tensions in Iraq and get more US troops killed. Iraqi Sunnis generally sympathize with the Palestinians. And hard line Shiites like the Sadr Movement and the Mahdi Army are close to Hizbullah. Israel's wars could tip Iraq over into an unstoppable downward spiral.

Lindsay Beyerstein a New York writer blogging at Majikthise.