Dangerous incidents

The incidents in the Persian Gulf where US warships were approached by Iranian speedboats, and in one instance fired at them, have a strange familiarity. Remember the Tonkin Gulf incident in 1964 that lead to the Congressional Resolution that allowed Pres. Lyndon Johnson to send the first large US forces to attack Vietnam. At first these Persian Gulf incidents sounded exactly like that, except that the US warship was not fired upon, so far. However, these incidents could be used to justify an aggressive military response to the Iranian Govt., if the US were looking for such an excuse. Pres. Bush issued a statement blaming the Iranians and warning them not to repeat such incidents. If history is any judge, and "if we don't remember history we are doomed to repeat it," then a war could mushroom out of this kind of minor incident.
While the world is not paying particular attention to these near-clashes, other incidents have occurred that are symptomatic of the forces of evil, that Pres. Bush recognized, as trying to stir up trouble. Two Katyusha rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel, fortunately causing no damage or injuries. Israel protested these firings at the UN Security Council, and the Council voted to reprimand Lebanon for a specific breakage of the ceasefire agreement of SC Resolution 1701 that ended the Second Lebanon War of 2006. While no organization accepted responsibility for these rocket firings and Hizbollah denied its involvement, some have blamed al Qaeda, since these firings were designed to bring conflict back to the region. As far as the UN and Israel are concerned, if the rockets come from Lebanese territory, then Lebanon is the responsible party. The Lebanese Army and the UNIFIL peacekeeping force have been patrolling the area north of the Israeli border up to the Litani river in order to prevent such attacks. However, to show their power, a terrorist attack was mounted at the same time against a UN patrol along the coast near Sidon and a jeep was destroyed. So far noone has claimed responsibility for these attacks, which the UN Secty. Gen. has criticized.
In Gaza, on two occasions in the past four days, the American International School has been attacked with rockets and shootings, and has been largely destroyed. The Palestinian Principal wondered why they would attack a Palestinian school with Palestinian pupils. But, as the last vestige of American influence in Gaza, the school was a target for Hamas to show its disapproval of the Bush visit to the region.
There are reports that Syria is rebuilding the site where the IAF destroyed a possible nuclear facility a few months ago. Some speculated that they wouldn't be stupid enough to rebuild a nuclear facility in the same place with so much attention focussed on it, but no one has vouched for the intelligence of the Assad regime.
All of these incidents show a stirring of the "forces of evil" under the banner of Islamism and with the support of Iran. They cannot but presage danger for the free world.