YOU GET WHAT...

YOU GET WHAT YOU PREP FOR. Adding some context to what Fox News has started calling, with no intent of inflaming the public, I'm sure, the new Iranian hostage crisis, The Jerusalem Post reports:

Iran, Syria and Hizbullah are preparing their defenses for a war in the summer, and they are more worried about an attack by the US than from Israel, OC Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin told the cabinet on Sunday.

Israel was following these moves very carefully, Yadlin said, and needed to be careful its actions were not misinterpreted, leading to a miscalculation by the other side.

Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports in the Russian press have been noted inside Israel, and are, perhaps, also circulating in Iran:

The United States will be ready to launch a missile attack on Iran's nuclear facilities as soon as early this month, perhaps "from 4 a.m. until 4 p.m. on April 6," according to reports in the Russian media on Saturday.

According to Russian intelligence sources, the reports said, the US has devised a plan to attack several targets in Iran, and an assault could be carried out by launching missiles from fighter jets and warships stationed in the Persian Gulf.

Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted a security official as saying, "Russian intelligence has information that the US Armed Forces stationed in the Persian Gulf have nearly completed preparations for a missile strike against Iranian territory."

It would be interesting to know what kind of impact such predictions have been having on recent Iranian behavior and calculations. Matt notes that the specter of accidental war with Syria based on a mix-up has also loomed large of late. Haaretz reports:

the Syrians are concerned that the United States will carry out an attack against Iran's nuclear installations in the summer, and in parallel Israel would strike Syria and Lebanon.

As Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned, before reassuring the Syrians, "There is always concern that when one side prepares for war, and the other side is preparing to counter the other side's preparations, then the first side interprets the preparations of the other side as if it is the manifestation of its fears, and the situation goes into a spin, and control is lost."

--Garance Franke-Ruta