“As long as terrorism continues without arrests [by the Palestinian Authority],” Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said at a Sunday cabinet meeting, “we will make the arrests; if there are no counterterrorist actions, we will act to prevent terrorist actions.”

On the ground, the raids also seemed brutal and indiscriminate, hitting Palestinian militants and one sought-after gunman, but also Palestinian policemen and more than a dozen civilians. Since Wednesday, Israeli troops have killed at least 24 people, including a 12-year old schoolgirl in Jenin and a 17-year-old altar boy on Bethlehem’s Manger Square as he was exiting Nativity Church after Saturday vespers. Israeli soldiers have also been wounded, some seriously, by armed Palestinians; one has died.

By Sunday night, tanks had moved deep into Bethlehem, just a few hundred yards from the spot believed to be the birthplace of Jesus. A shopping center was aflame, and there was heavy fighting near Bethlehem’s main hospital. Helicopters kept up a sinister drone overhead and Israeli troops, who took over houses and posted snipers on roofs in the Bethlehem area, were maintaining a climate of fear. “We can’t go outside — they’re shooting without reason. They are so furious,” said Rose Saqa, an English teacher in Beit Jala, a Christian town adjacent to Bethlehem, reached by phone. “In August, Israeli tanks came for two days and left, but now it’s really war. No one knows when it will end.”

The significant military escalation could mark a turning point in a conflict the American administration has tried to keep on a low flame since Sept. 11, in an effort to placate the moderate Arab states that are key allies in the U.S.-led war against terrorism.

The U.S. State Department called the incursions unhelpful on Friday, saying they complicate the situation and should be halted. Israel, however, did not seem ready to heed calls for moderation, and has seemed to respond instead to the public cries for revenge issued after the assassination of Tourism Minister Rechavam Zeevi (known by his nickname “Gandhi”).

In a telling example of blood lust, Zeevi’s son publicly challenged Ariel Sharon as he was standing glumly by the graveside of his ultranationalist friend and cabinet member at a packed military cemetery: “Arik [Sharon], avenge as Gandhi would have avenged your death. And go back to being the leader we once knew,” he said in a public speech.

Sharon, the “leader we once knew,” indeed seemed headed for a showdown with his arch-enemy Yasser Arafat. It’s almost 20 years since Sharon, as defense minister in Menachem Begin’s government, bombed Beirut and took troops into Lebanon in an effort to eliminate the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The day after Zeevi’s murder, he was quoted by Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli daily, as saying , “As far as I’m concerned, the era of Arafat is over.”

But Sharon faces constraints on retaliation within his own government. Although there have been disagreements between government hawks and doves since Sharon took power in March, those differences reached breaking point this week, with several Labor Party ministers threatening to resign if the current wide-scale incursions turn into a creeping war and reoccupation of the West Bank.

The lack of consensus was also obvious when the government decided to send top Israeli officials to the United States on a public relations mission, but could not agree on what the contents of Israel’s message should be. It will be interesting to see whether Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, defends Israel’s wide-scale military raids when he meets Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington on Monday, given his extreme reticence to embrace martial goals. While Sharon has been saying that he is “through with Arafat,” Peres said on Israeli television Saturday night that he believes Arafat is the only realistic partner Israel has.

“Should we topple the Palestinian Authority, there will be a blood bath in the territories,” he warned. “I told Arik [Sharon]: You say there is no such thing as good terrorism and bad terrorism. That is true, but by the same token there is no such thing as good occupation and bad occupation,” said Peres to Israel’s Channel 2. “No one in the world will be prepared to accept the continued occupation of the territories.” But he dismissed a call from a Labor Party colleague to resign from Sharon’s government.

On Sunday, Sharon sought to modify the impression that he was seeking to topple the P.A. and eliminate Arafat. “Israel has no interest in remaining in places where the army has entered,” Sharon said at the weekly cabinet meeting. “The amount of time the army stays in these areas depends, to a large extent, on Arafat and the actions he takes to prevent terrorism.”

Mindful of the Israeli mood, Arafat quickly condemned the killing of Zeevi and offered to arrest the culprits. His men rounded up members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the radical organization that took responsibility for Zeevi’s death, mostly in Gaza where the assailants are unlikely to be. But the Palestinian Authority refused to extradite any suspects and rejected an Israeli ultimatum issued Thursday at dawn that it do so.

“The ultimatum is an Israeli blackmail attempt, not one that seeks to find a solution to the present crisis,” said Palestinian Minister of Information Yasser Abed Rabbo at a press conference the same day. “We call on the international community to intervene. We believe that Sharon’s priority is to continue his war against the Palestinian people and to destroy the Palestinian Authority. We trust the world will not allow this to continue,” he said. “After all this is not going to be 1982 for Mr. Sharon.”

At first glance, the parallels with 1982 are striking. On June 3, 1982, an assassination attempt against Israeli ambassador to Britain Shlomo Argov as he was exiting the Dorchester Hotel provided the catalyst for an explosive reaction Sharon had been planning for months: the bombing of PLO sites in West Beirut followed by a ground invasion of Lebanon. Although the assailants belonged to the terrorist group headed by Abu Nidal, an Iraqi-sponsored enemy of the PLO, the difference between Arafat and the murderers was swept aside. (Zeev Schiff, who wrote the bestselling book “Israel’s Lebanon War,” quotes Rafaul Eitan, then Israel’s army chief of staff, saying, “Abu Nidal, Abu Shmidal. We have to strike at the PLO!”)

This week, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group that opposes the land-for-peace compromise signed by Arafat at Oslo in 1993, ignored the official cease-fire declared by the Palestinian Authority and lodged three bullets in the head of an Israeli minister, Zeevi, at the Hyatt Hotel. Again, the assailants were not under Arafat’s orders, but Israel blamed the Palestinian leader and declared the Palestinian Authority an entity that harbors and supports terrorists. Right-wing Israelis insist that the P.A. was in the same position as the Taliban, which is guilty of nurturing and protecting Osama bin Laden, and that the P.A. should hand over the murderers of Zeevi or face Afghanistan-style strikes.

But the constraints on Sharon are far greater than they were 19 years ago. “The difference with today is the collective experience of the aftermath of 1982,” said Yossi Alpher, an Israeli strategic analyst. At the time, Sharon pushed Israeli troops beyond the modest goal of ending PLO incursions into northern Israel by destroying their bases in southern Lebanon, into the deadly trap of an urban civil war. After Israel’s Christian allies massacred Palestinian refugees in the camps of Sabra and Shatilla, Sharon was chastised for his costly military adventure and forced by an outraged Israeli public to resign. Even after withdrawing from Beirut, the Israeli army was bogged down in southern Lebanon for years, pulling out only in May 2000 under Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

“Sharon himself drew the conclusion that you only launch such campaigns when you have united public support behind it,” said Alpher. But the prime minister may feel he has that support today, Alpher suggests. “There’s a natural tendency to close ranks after a tragedy. The display of unity and solidarity [after Zeevi's death] is interesting given Zeevi’s extremist views, but I wouldn’t make too much of it at a strategic level.”

In fact, polls released since Zeevi’s murder show a public united behind Sharon, but divided and confused about the policy the government should pursue. In a Gallup poll published by the Israeli daily Maariv on Sunday, 38 percent of respondents said Israel should declare war on the P.A., while an equal number said Israel should accelerate peace efforts. The rift in public opinion applies also to whether Arafat should be viewed as an enemy (60 percent) and whether a Palestinian state should be established alongside Israel (61 percent support the idea). Only 22 percent, however, said they favor recapturing Palestinian-controlled territory if negotiations fail. “Israelis do not want to lose the hope in an agreement with the Palestinians and also do not want to lose hope in victory over terrorism,” wrote Sever Plotzer in Yedioth Ahronoth.

“The Israeli public does support a ‘strong hand’ but up to point: It is doubtful whether public opinion is prepared for the casualties of an all-out war against the P.A. or for the diplomatic and economic blow that would result from a head-on confrontation with America and its partners,” wrote Hemi Shalev, commenting on the poll results in Maariv.

Israel’s flagging peace movement has been somewhat energized by the latest escalation. Peace Now rallied Saturday night in Jerusalem under the slogan “Stop the War.”

“The government of Israel is cynically exploiting the assassination of Tourism Minister Zeevi in order to drag into an all-out military confrontation with the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people,” said Moria Shlomot, director of Peace Now. “There is no consensus in the Israeli public for such a war, and we protest the attempt to foist upon us the agenda of an extremist minority.” Yossi Sarid, the head of the left-wing Meretz opposition party, warned Friday that toppling Arafat, a relatively moderate secular leader, would backfire and could bring a Palestinian bin Laden to power instead.

But for now, Sharon’s popularity remains high, and safely above that of his right-wing rival, the hawkish former Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. Flanked by his dovish Foreign Minister Peres, Sharon has acceded to Western demands in the past and adopted, until now, a policy of relative military restraint. At the same time, Sharon retains a well-worn tough guy’s image and is capable of striking defiant poses, taking on Washington, for example, a few weeks ago in a speech in which he accused the United States of wanting to appease Arab states at Israel’s expense, or declaring an “all-out war” against the Palestinians after Zeevi’s murder.

For his part, Arafat clearly feels the heat. He has repeatedly pledged his commitment to the tenuous cease-fire declared at the end of September and said that armed groups that violate the truce would be outlawed. But the stranglehold imposed by Israeli troops on West Bank cities, and the outrage caused by the deaths of Palestinian civilians, make it near-impossible for him to act decisively against militants wanted by Israel and certainly incapable of stopping Palestinians from taking pot shots at Israeli tanks stationed in their midst. On the streets of the West Bank, Arafat’s words and the policy dilemmas faced by the Sharon government are largely irrelevant as violence follows its own implacable logic.

For instance, when a booby-trapped 4×4 Mitsubishi exploded Thursday, killing Atef Abayat, a Palestinian militant on the top of Israel’s most-wanted list, and two of his companions, it set a new vicious circle going, one that is only marginally connected to the war between Sharon and Arafat. After the Israeli-engineered explosion, members of the Abayat clan who live in the Bethlehem area opened fire on Gilo, a Jewish neighborhood just south of Jerusalem built on land seized in the 1967 Mideast War. Israeli tanks then moved in, faithful to a pledge made in August — when Israeli tanks left the area after a two-day incursion — that they would return if Gilo was attacked.

As a result, an area that had been quiet since August turned into a dangerous war zone Friday and Saturday, in which masked Palestinian militants aimed their rifles at Israeli tanks and innocent bystanders were shot dead on their roofs, in their homes and on the ghost town’s sidewalks by Israeli soldiers.

On Saturday alone, a 23-year-old woman was killed in Bethlehem when her car came under Israeli fire. A mother of eight was killed in a refugee camp across from Bethlehem’s luxurious Intercontinental Hotel, taken over by Israeli soldiers. A 17-year-old was shot after attending mass at the Church of the Nativity by an Israeli sniper a half-mile away. And Yusef Abayat, a relative of the dead gunman Ataf, was shot dead, allegedly after trying to stab an Israeli soldier. The sound of more shooting accompanied their funerals on Sunday, when four more Palestinians were killed in disparate and sometimes seemingly random battles: a resident and a police officer in Bethlehem, a man in nearby Beit Jala and a Palestinian woman outside Jenin in the northern West Bank.

“It’s not clear yet if this is a turning point,” said Alpher, the analyst, referring to Israel’s recent raids. The constraints on Israeli policy remain the same: American pressure to cool things down; the desire not to escalate the conflict into a regional war with Iraq, Egypt or Syria; and the fact that Israel does not want to reoccupy all Palestinian territory and have 3.2 million hostile Palestinians on its hands. Still, the lack of vision and strategy on the part of Arafat and Sharon has cost more than 800 lives over the past year, and there’s no reason to expect the killing will stop anytime soon.

Many governments struggling with dissent appear to be using a double-barreled strategy to fight back against the so-called Facebook revolutions: classic repression and by promoting their own views using the very same platforms.

“The thought police already have a presence online in these countries,” said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, the Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists. “And they have a very heavy presence on Twitter, Facebook and other social media networks. They go out there and intimidate people. And they accuse people of being heathens. And call for their heads.”

Jeffrey Ghannam, a media lawyer and analyst in Washington, thinks the propaganda strategy will win out over subjugation.

“It’s my sense that Arab governments will focus less on control, filtering and blocking — though those efforts will not completely disappear — and begin to assert their own views in the Arab cyberspace,” he said.

“Consider the cases of so-called Bahraini twitter trolls and the Syrian cyber attacks that go after critics of these respective Arab regimes. The official Arab government view is increasingly in the mix,” he said. “Another example is the way the SCAF (Egypt’s Supreme Council of Armed Forces) uses Facebook and Twitter. It may not be beautifully done, and it does draw tens of thousands of critical remarks online that are viewable, but the SCAF is contributing its views. These are all significant developments and point to increasing government engagement in the Arab cyberspace.”

Some of the official efforts smack of classic public relations techniques.

In Bahrain, the government launched an online campaign called “We Are All Hamad,” asking supporters to post pictures of Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s ruler, on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

In Tunisia, government officials, including President Moncef Marzouki (@Moncef_Marzouki) have joined Twitter. The royal family in Jordan, as well as the mayor of Amman, Jordan’s capital, also use Facebook and Twitter to speak directly to constituents.

These regimes, however, have a long history of using heavy-handed tactics and are apparently not about to give up on old habits. Many, in fact, have learned that social media can help identify potential targets of their crackdown.

This nascent trend, however, has not led authorities in these countries and elsewhere to give up old habits. Many have continued to opt for the more traditional and heavy-handed response.

Last month, for instance, Moroccan authorities arrested 18-year-old college student Walid Bahomane on charges of “defaming Morocco’s sacred values” by posting unflattering pictures and videos on Facebook that poked fun at King Mohammed VI. Authorities also convicted another student, Abdelsamad Haydour, 24, earlier in the month for criticizing the ruler in a video posted on YouTube.

These developments have taken place in a country largely praised for its response to citizen discontent over the past year. In November, Morocco held peaceful parliamentary elections as part of a governmental reform process initiated by the king that also included a new constitution.

In Saudi Arabia, 23-year-old journalist Hamza Kashgari faces charges of blasphemy, an offence that carries the death sentence, for tweeting an imaginary conversation he was having with the Prophet Muhammad. The uproar over Kashgari’s comments prompted the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Azeez ibn Abdullaah Aal ash-Shaikh, to issue a fatwa against Twitter, which he told “real Muslims” to avoid as a “platform for trading accusations and for promoting lies,” according to an article in The National.

And in Jordan, a masked assailant on Feb. 20 stabbed university student Enass Musallam after he published a blog post that criticized a member of the Jordanian royal family.

Authorities in the region are now also turning to old laws — such as emergency laws, anti-terrorism laws and press laws — to justify the arrest, fines and incarceration of individuals for online expression.

“When the internet and social media blogs were just starting to become popular, press laws were only applied to the mainstream media. But that’s no longer the case as these media platforms continue to converge,” said Courtney Radsch, program manager for the Global Freedom of Expression Campaign at Freedom House in New York.

Earlier this month, for instance, authorities in the United Arab Emirates arrested pro-democracy activist Saleh al-Dhufairi for tweets criticizing the UAE’s decision to deport Syrian expatriates who demonstrated outside their consulate in Dubai without a permit.

“Saleh al-Dhufairi has been arrested on accusation of spreading ideas by speech, writing and any other means that provoke strife, hurt national unity, and social peace,” a spokesman for Dubai police said in a statement.

Al-Dhufairi’s arrest is a scare tactic by a government that is itself scared of any significant dissent, CPJ’s Abdel Dayem.

“Events are occurring that are of monumental political weight and have very far reaching implications. So what happens in Tunisia matters in the Gulf and what happens in Syria matters in the Gulf,” Abdel Dayem said. “These are obviously separate political entities and separate states but there is a Pan-Arab media consumed across borders, so journalists, bloggers, regular citizens and everyone else is exploring these new found venues for expression.”

“They are testing government tolerance for criticism, not just in Libya, Egypt and Yemen where there was an actual change in the political arrangement, but also in countries where there hasn’t been change.”

And these governments in turn are testing their responses, said popular UAE commentator Sultan Al Qassemi, who has more than 100,000 followers on Twitter.

“What we are seeing today is part of the teething process of accepting social media as an avenue of communication and criticism of society and government in the Gulf,” Qassemi said. “As the adoption of social media tools grows in the Gulf there will naturally be a larger output of opinions, some less agreeable to the authorities than others.”

Citizen journalists, bloggers and average citizens who run afoul of the law for expressing their opinions online must also contend with inadequate legal representation.

“This is a new realm for many lawyers in these countries. It requires training and requires a level of experience with the technology and that’s lacking in many countries if not all,” Radsch said. “Certainly, in the U.S. where you’ve had a longer history with internet-based content you have some more sophistication there.

But in many of these countries, blogging really just got going in 2004 and 2005.”

“With the advent of TV, you saw fewer cases against broadcasters at the beginning because it was still new and they were figuring things out, but you’re going to continue to see this battle between governments and citizens play out,” she said.

This time, however, the very nature of the internet and social networking might be enough to break the cycle.

“One thing is different,” Radsch said. “There are a lot more stakeholders and users of social media. The mainstream media is owned by a few and provides jobs for a few more but the vested interest across the broad swath of the public using social media could mean far more stakeholders could fight for the right to keep this space open.”

In the past few weeks, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon have all held high level meetings in Jerusalem. Barak is scheduled to meet with Panetta and with Vice President Joe Biden. Peres will meet with President Barack Obama, as will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will fly to Washington for a much anticipated meeting on March 5.

The subject at hand is nuclear Iran — not the movie version, and not even the proxy war version, which has seen the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, the attempted assassinations of Israeli diplomats, and genial computer viruses attack Iranian nuclear installations, making centrifuges spiral out of control, as in Hollywood’s imagination.

On the eve of the Israelis’ Washington visits, there is a divergence of opinion between the United States and Israel regarding the utility of the recently hardened sanctions on Iran, and a growing apprehension on both sides about what the other may be prepared to accept from the Islamic Republic’s leadership.

Eytan Gilboa, an expert on U.S.-Israel bilateral relations who holds posts at Bar Ilan University and at the University of Southern California, said the situation is stark and in some ways unprecedented.

“The Obama administration has little trust in Netanyahu and vice versa. The new sanctions that have been imposed have produced economic hardship in Tehran, but this does not mean they are working. To work, they have to change the Iranian government’s policy toward nuclear development, and this has not yet happened.”

“The UN Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has just announced that Iran has substantially increased enrichment, which seems to contradict American statements that have appeared in all the media suggesting that Iran has not yet made the decision whether to develop nuclear weapons.”

Two points of dispute stand out in creating what Sen. John McCain, also on a visit to Israel last week, called the “daylight” between the two countries regarding Iran’s nuclear plan.

The first is the question of what constitutes unacceptable progress toward the manufacture of an armed nuclear device, or, in Barak’s words, Iran’s entry into a “zone of immunity.” The other is the extent of uranium enrichment at a nuclear site near the holy city of Qum, which was highlighted by the IAEA report.

The United States and Israel agree that the secret underground structure is better protected from a possible military strike than other known Iranian facilities. But from that point of agreement, different conclusions are drawn.

Israeli analysts believe Iran is moving fast toward a nuclear military option, and taking advantage of the pressure of sanctions and the time granted by European offers to negotiate in order to assemble all the parts necessary to build a bomb. The United States, which is in the midst of an election year, meanwhile, thinks sanctions may yet bring Iran — “if it is behaving as a rational actor,” in Gilboa’s words — to negotiate.

“The process is preparing everything for the building of bombs, with the aim of creating all the parts and then needing only a very short period of time to assemble a weapon. So it is just playing with words if we say that we don’t know whether they have made a decision. If you produce all the parts, it is obvious that means you intend to produce a bomb,” Gilboa said.

“I think that what Obama wants from Netanyahu next week is a commitment not to strike Iran at least until the American election, to give heavier sanctions a chance and not to surprise the United States.”

Gilboa does not believe Israel would attack Iranian nuclear installations without notifying the Americans beforehand.

Still, he points out, “The current situation is unprecedented. The U.S. has never before asked Israel to refrain from military action, and Israel has never before asked the U.S. for permission. This is all new ground.”

The 1981 Israel Air Force attack on Osirak, Saddam Hussein’s French-built nuclear reactor is now ancient history. In that campaign however, only eight jets were involved.

The New York Times estimated that at least 100 Israeli fighter planes would be needed today for a crippling attack on Iran. At the time of the Osirak strike, the United States angrily condemned Israel. But in 2005, former President Bill Clinton said, “Everybody talks about what the Israelis did at Osirak in 1981, which I think, in retrospect, was a really good thing.”

The current disagreement between Israel and the United States seem not to be on the substance of Iran’s nuclear program, or even on the possibility of a necessary, last-resort, military strike, but on the timetable and method of response to the threat.

Many Israeli analysts believe the Obama administration and Europe are not convinced that the full effect of sanctions has yet been felt. Israelis are concerned that by the time they are felt, possibly by next summer, when Europe’s oil embargo on Iran is scheduled to go into effect, it might be too late.

“What Obama would like is to put the crippling sanctions to the test. He thinks that the sanctions being used this time, alongside the oil embargo, will actually have an impact,” said Tel Aviv University professor Uzi Rabi, the director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies.

“He is in effect saying to Israel, don’t surprise us. We want to be updated from A to Z. The second thing, I think Israel is being asked is to play down the shadow war and really just let sanctions work. If the sanctions are going to be fully implemented it could inflict a lethal blow on the Iranian regime, and since what we are talking about is the survival of the regime itself, this could be very effective.”

As to Israel, Rabi says, “It would like to make sure everybody knows that from its point of view, a nuclear Iran is unbearable. This combination of ayatollahs and power is something that poses an existential threat to Israel, and it is something Israel is really afraid of. What Israel thinks is the right thing to do is to make sure the military option is not only on the table, but actually feasible.”

Not many in Israel think that Iran, even with a nuclear weapon in hand, would attack Tel Aviv.

“Based on rational thinking, which is not one of the strongest characteristics of the Middle East, if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it would be tantamount to suicide were they to use them. Iran would be wiped out by Israel’s second strike capability and by American nukes,” Gilboa said.

“I think they want them in order to acquire hegemony in the Middle East. By becoming a nuclear power they can threaten anybody. The power of threat is much more than the power of destruction.”

Gilboa predicts that next week Netanyahu will ask Obama how he plans to ensure Iran’s non-nuclear status in the event sanctions fail to cripple the nuclear program, and that Obama “will evade the answers.”

Rabi says “Israel is afraid to be left alone. I don’t think Iran would attack Israel. But their actions provide a source of inspiration for lunatic radical movements like Hamas and Hezbollah, and the fact that they are attacking Israelis in Baku, Delhi and Tbilisi, though ineffective for now, show that this is a state that could act in accordance with the modus operandi of a terrorist group. This has very negative implications for the stability of the Middle East.”

Not all Israeli experts see in the commotion of transatlantic visits and consultations evidence of tension between the United States and Israel. Shlomo Shpiro, vice chair of the Department of Politics at Bar Ilan University, believes those claims to be overstated.

“I think there anxiety among some in the U.S. administration who fear that a powerful Israeli military action against Iran could have an impact on the election in November. I don’t think there is tension. A whole range of senior American officials have been visiting Israel almost on a weekly basis.”

“I think the threat assessment is very similar in Washington and in Jerusalem,” he adds. “I think Obama is very concerned about the possibility of Iran getting nuclear weapons. Both are very worried, and both countries agree the process is moving quickly. The disagreement is only about how to prevent or delay it.”

Any Israeli military option, Shpiro says, would be a “last resort.”

“But if it comes to a last resort, I think Israel’s leadership will not hesitate. It all depends on the progress of Iran’s nuclear program and on information that the U.S. and Israel obtain about that program.”

For now, the war of nerves will play on, with Israel pressuring the U.S. and Europe to fully implement severe sanctions as soon as possible, and demanding assurances, perhaps impossible to give, about what the West will do if sanctions do not deter Iran.

The psychological warfare, many say, may lead Iran to believe it can “safely assume it can continue with its plan to build nuclear weapons without much interference,” Gilboa said. “There is a possibility the Iranians are laughing at everybody. For example, why announce sanctions and then say you’ll impose them only in six months?”

“The Iranians are the only ones producing consistent statements, and this is our problem. Too many of the statements coming from the West are confusing and could be interpreted in any number of ways.”

Hezbollah has enjoyed enormous popularity across the entire region, perceived by many as the champions of the Arab world, successfully standing up to the bully in the playground, Israel. There was a time when the portrait of Hassan Nasrallah hung on the walls of homes and cafes from Baghdad to Casablanca. Yet, following a relatively cool reception of Nasrallah’s speech on the 16^th of February , one got the distinct impression that the Lebanese resistance leader may not enjoy the same popularity he once did with the Arab masses.

A simple explanation might be Hezbollah’s unequivocal support for Bashar el-Assad’s regime in Syria.  In a speech broadcast by al-Manar on May 25^th 2011, Nasrallah declared his group’s strong support for the Assad regime. He hailed Syria for its support of the Resistance movement in Lebanon and Palestine. Many have been unable to comprehend why the former champions of the resistance would side with the regime against the people, especially considering Hezbollah’s unreserved support for the uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain. This has eroded the party’s popularity not only among Sunnis in Syria, who dominate the opposition, but also in the Arab world at large as regional tensions intensify between Shi’ite Iran and the predominantly Sunni Arab states.

Ironically, the very cause which won Hezbollah respect from thousands across the region, also, lost them the support of their own people. Throughout the 1990s, the Lebanese, regardless of sect, were united by Hezbollah’s resistance to the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon and again in 2006 when Israel threatened reinvasion. However, critics point to Hezbollah’s reluctance to disarm as the main source of national instability. Lebanese political leader Samir Geagea asserting that “The ones who are involving Lebanon [in crises] are those wielding power outside the Lebanese state” and demanding that Hezbollah put down its arms and integrate itself with the official Lebanese army and government.

In a similar vein, Hezbollah has alienated many followers by becoming embroiled in a petty tit-for-tat exchange with the March 14 coalition over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq el-Hariri.  Many, regardless of their politics, had respected Nasrallah for his commitment to his cause and ability to avoid entanglement in party politics.

Though not Hezbollah’s fault, as such, the persisting devastation of the socio-economic condition and infrastructure of southern Lebanon has also served as a harsh reminder, to the organisation’s critics, of the consequences of war with Israel

In the Asia Times, Sami Moubayed, points out Hassan Nasrallah’s total withdrawal from public life in Lebanon in recent years; choosing to address his supporters on live television rather than the massive public rallies for which he has been famed. His disappearance has been due to security fears. However, this has made it difficult for followers to connect with him. It is, also, now harder to draw in new supporters from across the Arab and Islamic worlds.

Despite their somewhat dented popularity, Hezbollah is still massively important on a strategic level, with regard to predicting the outcome of unrest in Syria.

In a speech broadcast by al-Manar on the 25^th August 2011, Nasrallah named Syria as a very important ally in the region “The Syrian support has been crucial. A great part of the Iranian support comes through Syria. If it had not been for the will of Syria, even the Iranian support would have been blocked”.  So, it is reasonable to assume that the fall of the Assad regime would serve a tremendous blow to Hezbollah, but also, act as catalyst to a power struggle within the country. A regime in Syria based on the Sunni Muslim majority would most likely be more friendly to Hezbollah’s local rivals in the March 14 coalition. Such a regime would also have good relations with regional powers that have severe disagreements with the Hezbollah movement over sectarian and political issues.

Prof. Joseph Bahout at Sciences Po in Paris notes that, in such a situation, Hezbollah would be faced with two alternatives, if faced with waning support from Syria “will Hizballah gradually become more flexible in terms of Lebanonization and civilianization? Or, on the contrary, will it increasingly pursue a radical position and bitterly defend its share of the Lebanese system while echoing Tehran’s dictum that Assad’s rule in Syria is a red line?” Judging by Hezbollah’s stern rhetoric over the past few months, the leadership has already decided on the latter and will continue to stand by the Assad regime.

Perhaps, most dangerously, Hezbollah also play an extremely important strategic role in what has been suggested as an imminent conflict between Israel and Iran. Would Israel be capable of conducting an aerial battle with Iran at the same time as defending itself against Hezbollah, closer to home?

Ha’aretz commentator Yoel Marcus thinks not, saying that a strike on Iran would be out of Israel’s league and points to cautions issued by former Mossad chief Meir Dagan against attacking Iran, amidst concerns that such a move would drag Israel into a regional war, which would involve Hezbollah, Hamas and possibly Syria.

Tensions have been escalating between Israel and Iran for some time, recently, heightened following attacks on Israeli embassies in India, Thailand and Georgia. An official for the Israeli counter terrorism bureau, quoted in Ha’aretz warned Israelis of further attacks and noted that Nasrallah’s threats of revenge for the 2008 assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughaniyeh were being taken into account.  Nasrallah categorically denied any involvement in the explosions in his speech on February 16^th.

But what would such a conflict mean for the Arab world at large? It seems unlikely that Egyptians, Jordanians or, the Palestinians, all not so embroiled in the sectarian debate, would support Israel in any conflict against Muslims whether they be in Lebanon or, in Iran. However, countries in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) might have more to gain from a weakened Iran.

The GCC have been concerned about Iran’s capabilities, behavior and intentions for a long time, but it takes on an additional importance in light of the Arab Spring. This has certainly been the case in Egypt and Bahrain, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, possibly in Yemen, and now in Syria.

GCC countries have repeatedly accused Tehran of attempting to destabilise their internal security, and attempting to instigate sectarian strife. Iran has rejected these accusations, and pointed to the GCC’s appalling treatment of Shi’ite citizens. Particularly, concerning the brutal suppression of the largely Shi’ite uprising in Bahrain against the Sunni al-Khalifa monarchy, a struggle which was obviously covered up by Gulf sponsored media such as al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya.

Tensions have also been rising over Iran’s ability to developing nuclear weapons, something that is already of great concern to the GCC. Without a nuclear advantage, the Gulf far outguns Iran in terms of military capability, although, Iran is not reluctant to use its geopolitical position and has threatened to close off the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil passes, if pressured.

When placed in the context of a larger regional conflict between Israel and Iran, Hezbollah plays an absolutely crucial part as an ally of Iran, especially in the absence of Syria. Yet, when the financial might of the GCC is also turned against Iran, Hezbollah, which is ultimately a financially dependent arm of Iran, becomes inconsequential.

It is possible that Hezbollah may look to find solutions to its waning popularity, and a possible run in with the GCC, by pre-emptively launching a strike against Israel. In his speech on Feburary 16^th, Nasrallah ambiguously claimed that “We have arms and they are increasing [in number]. We have well-known weapons and there are others which are hidden and unknown. We are hiding them because we need to protect our country and prepare surprises for the Israelis.” Whilst this may be an empty threat, a Hezbollah spokesman has said that the organisation would be willing to go to war with Israel, should Syria be attacked. It seems likely that the same logic would apply if an attack were to be staged against Iran.

Prof. Juan Cole has said that, in the case of a conflict with Iran, Hezbollah would almost certainly launch a rocket attack, which would threaten up to a quarter of the Israeli population. The casualties might be even worse if Hezbollah is able to target toxic gas storage in Haifa or nuclear reactors in Dimona and Nahal Sorek. Already Israel has been taking steps to shut down these facilities, in the event of an attack.

This seems to be a departure from Nasrallah’s statement in 2006, shortly after the 34 day war between Hezbollah and Israel, when he told Lebanon’s NTV that had he would not have ordered the capture of two Israeli soldiers, had he known that this would lead to such devastation. However, six years on, the situation between Iran and Israel has escalated, and for Hezbollah this has become a battle for existence. In an earlier speech, February 7^th, Nasrallah admitted that the organisation has been completely dependent on Iran for “moral, political and financial support” since 1982.

Hezbollah has found itself in the unenviable position of choosing between its Iranian financial backer and its Arab popular support base. Ironically, Hezbollah’s only hope may be an Israelis attack on Iran, thus gaining it some support, once more, as the champion of resistance against the Zionist aggressor. But should the pressure on Iran be laid on by the Gulf states, Hezbollah will be left with no alternative but to cut its ties with Iran or, face complete irrelevance within the Arab world.

On the surface, the criteria that Obama outlined in his Libya speech are present in Syria: impending and ongoing massacres; a multilateral coalition led by America’s traditional allies; and an opportunity to side with the people in a crucial state in the Arab spring. For this reason, many liberal writers have called on the U.S. to intervene. Paul Berman has signed onto a conservative-led letter to the president asking him to intervene in Syria. The New Republic has an entire symposium with intellectuals (mostly) asking Obama to side militarily with the Syrian resistance. “Lead again from behind!” Leon Wieseltier exhorts. Especially powerful is a heartfelt plea for American help from a Syrian activist in Washington:

Pressure is building in Congress. Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who both serve on the Armed Services Committee, have argued for arming the Syrian rebels. Obama’s former State Department policy planning head Anne-Marie Slaughter was among the first to call for intervention. In late January, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said it’s only “a question of time” before President Bashar al Assad falls. In December, the State Department pointman said Syria’s leader was a “dead man walking.” More recently, White House press secretary said on Tuesday that “additional measures” such as rebel-arming may need to be taken if the international community keeps dithering.

There are two significant reasons the administration has not pushed for military intervention, however. First, the international consensus that existed on Libya is not present in Syria. Russia and China vetoed a Western- and Arab-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the Syrian government. Imagining that they would agree to a military intervention is simply fanciful.

What hasn’t been much discussed is why China and Russia vetoed the resolution. And here we circle back to Libya. The resolution authorizing military action in Libya was limited to protecting civilians in Benghazi and other areas. NATO and its allies quickly went beyond the scope of this mandate, using airpower to assist the rebels in defeating Col. Gadhafi and his forces. Such actions may have been morally justified, but they didn’t go unnoticed by the Chinese and Russians, who are extremely sensitive to infringements on state sovereignty (lest they be targeted one day). Tellingly, foes of the proposed Syria resolution explained their decision in terms of national sovereignty. Russia’s foreign minister said that “the Security Council by definition does not engage in domestic affairs of member states.” Russia’s U.N. envoy faulted the resolution for aiming at “regime change,” even though the wording of the text notably did not call for it and the Arab states explicitly rejected Western military intervention.

The second reason Libya isn’t acting as a template for Syria is one of logistics. As Middle East expert Marc Lynch has explained, “Military intervention in Syria has little prospect of success, a high risk of disastrous failure, and a near-certainty of escalation which should make the experience of Iraq weigh extremely heavily on anyone contemplating such an intervention.” The Syrian opposition, impressive and courageous as they have been, is divided, weak and controls no territory. Air power of the sort the West can provide would not be effective in preventing civilian deaths, and the fighting is taking place in densely populated cities. For these reasons and more, a Libya-style no-fly zone simply won’t fly.

Eventually, the Syrian government’s efforts to suppress the rebellion may be so bloody that the Obama administration feels compelled to intervene. But so far, the conditions that were present in Libya are not present in Syria. It may be a double standard, and one that liberal hawks are not comfortable with, but it is one with good reason.