As has been my practice, I try to take a more measured approach when assessing rapidly developing situations. There is always a certain amount of triage when trying to get my readers the latest and most important information fast when balanced against the need to allow a situation to develop enough that one can make assessments with a high degree of reliability. I appreciate each and every one of my readers and assure you that if there is something critical and time sensitive, I will immediately go to press. Knowing this, I have been closely watching how events developed for indicators of rapid escalation in the Middle East. For example, Friday night, I sent out notice that the greenlight had been given for Israel’s ground invasion to begin. This was factual; however, Hamas made a last-minute deal to release two hostages buying some time and further delaying the offensive. Since then, Israel has come under heavy pressure from the United States to delay the offensive until it can move additional military assets into theater such as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. THAAD, is an air defense system designed to shoot down short, medium, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in their terminal phase. THAAD is a big clue to what’s coming. You see, Hamas does not have ballistic missiles of any type. They have a hodgepodge of crudely built, but sufficiently effective and cheap rockets. However, Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran have lots of ballistic missiles.