Rush to Judgment?

During the Lebanon war, it was often argued that there was a direct operational link between Hezbollah and Teheran.

It was seen as Hezbollah attacking Israel on the instructions of Teheran, and the counterstrike just being an attack on the "Western front" of the coming confrontation with Iran.

Now, doubts are beginning to emerge.

Some of those propagating these theories are displeased with the US intelligence agencies, since these do not seem to be giving much support to the thesis.

According to an article in The Washington Post today:

"Several intelligence officials said that American spy agencies had made assessments in recent weeks that despite established ties between Iran and Hezbollah and a well-documented history of Iran arming the organization, there was no credible evidence to suggest either that Iran ordered the Hezbollah raid that touched off the recent fighting or that Iran was directly controlling attacks against Israel."

The fact seems to be that we don't know the fact.

And we should have learnt that a rush to judgement is not a particularly good basis for policy decisions.

Neither in the Middle East nor elsewhere. But perhaps particularly in the Middle East.