I THOUGHT THE IRAQIS WERE MUSLIMS!'

--The alleged response of President George W. Bush when told that that there were two different sects of Islam; cited in Christian Avard, 'Ambassador Claims Shortly before Invasion, Bush Didn't Know There Were Two Sects of Islam' (Raw Story, August 4)
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Ambassad..._Bush_0804.html

IRANIAN PROFESSIONALS' U.S. VISAS REVOKED: DOZENS EN ROUTE TO A REUNION IN CALIFORNIA ARE TURNED BACK AT AMERICAN AIRPORTS - TEREA WATANABE AND LEE ROMNEY (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 5): Amid rising tensions with Iran, U.S. officials have abruptly revoked the visas of dozens of Iranian professionals headed to a university reunion in Northern California this weekend, refusing them entry as they landed at several U.S. airports.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-vi...488,print.story

ISRAEL PR: THE IDF SPOX IS KILLING US - JONATHAN ARIEL (ISRAEL NEWS AGENCY, AUGUST 5): Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will gather, for the first time, a forum of all government spokespersons to brief them on how to improve Israel's public diplomacy efforts during the war.
http://www.israelnewsagency.com/idfisraelp...ns48770807.html

ANALYSIS: THE FINGERS OF BLAME - DAVID HOROVIT (JERUSALEM POST, AUGUST 7): For Israel to prevail requires more astute use of the IDF, of diplomatic channels to ensure that the soldiers' gains are not frittered away and of "public diplomacy" to maximize support and puncture misperception. Israel needs to improve, urgently, in all three areas.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...ticle%2FPrinter

IDEOLOGICAL DOCTRINE PAVES KREMLIN'S COURSE - VICTOR YASMANN, RFE/RL (ISN, SWITZERLAND, AUGUST 7): A rising ideological force within Putin's camp, Archbishop Kirill, speaking at the 10th World Congress of Russian People in April, universally rejected Western democratic values and defended Russia's "specific" vision of democracy and human rights. 'Our official and public diplomacy always considers it a victory when we manage to prove to the West that we are like them -- but this is simply disinformation and the wrong [thing to do]," he said.
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=16485

"INFORMATION OPERATIONS [IN OPERATIONS ENDURING FREEDOM AND IRAQI FREEDOM --]: WHAT WENT WRONG?" MARC LYNCH (ABU AARDVACK, AUGUST 4)
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark...mation_ope.html

PUBLIC SUPPORT IN ISRAEL FRAYS AS TOLL CLIMBS - MOLLY MOORE AND JONATHAN FINER (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 6)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0500478_pf.html

U.S. JEWS ON 'HEIGHTENED alert' AS CRISIS ESCALATES - SHMUEL ROSNER (HAARETZ, AUGUST 6): The U.S. Jewish community shows near-unanimous support for Israel's operations in Lebanon.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/746681.html

AMERICANS AREN'T BUYING HEZBOLLAH JOHN (POWER LINE BLOG, AUGUST 5): The American people have their minds pretty well made up between the Israelis who want to live in peace and the Arab extremists who want to destroy them, and the efforts of the left and elements of the media to construct an equivalence (or worse) between the two sides haven't made much of a dent.
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014904.php

THE HARMLESS CHILDREN OF HEZBOLLAH: GERMANS ARE SQUABBLING ABOUT WHETHER ISRAEL'S MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST LEBANON ARE JUSTIFIED. BUT HOW ELSE CAN ISRAEL DEFEND ITSELF AGAINST HEZBOLLAH ROCKETS? BY STAGING SIT-DOWN PROTESTS ALONG THE ISRAELI-LEBANESE BORDER, PERHAPS? - HENRYK M. BRODER (SPIEGEL, AUGUST 3): The appeals to respect international law and the rules of the game are always directed at Israel, never at those who believe that all means are justified in the struggle against Israel.
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/internatio...-429982,00.html

BIGOTRY PINS BLAME ON JEWS: WHAT WAS MEL GIBSON'S CATCH-ALL SOLUTION TO HIS WOES? JEWS ARE BAD? - DAVID MAMET (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, AUGUST 6): Israel's Jews are no more the cause of Arab fundamentalist rage than they were the cause of European fascism. They, as always, are the miner's canary, singled out as -- and the first victims of -- national or global unrest.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion...ncommentary-hed

STARRING ON JIHAD'S STAGE - MICHELLE MALKIN (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 4): "All the world's a stage," Shakespeare wrote. The journalists of our age have chosen their costumes: court jesters in the Theater of Jihad.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...03-084703-5273r

HEZBOLLAH'S PSYCH-OPS: THEY KNOW THE MINDS OF THEIR ENEMIES - CLIFFORD D. MAY (NATIONAL REVIEW, AUGUST 4): Hezbollah propagandists understand how to manipulate the Western media.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTFlN...jEzNDMzZGI0NjU=

NEWS ANALYSIS: HEZBOLLAH WAGES NEW GENERATION OF WARFARE - MATTHEW B. STANNARD (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, AUGUST 6): Israel's tactical bombing of targets in Lebanon, which have killed far more Lebanese civilians than Hezbollah fighters -- became strategic weapons for Hezbollah through its own television network and the combined media power of a globalized world.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&type=printable

THE MEDIA AIMS ITS MISSILES - TOM GROSS (JERUSALEM POST, AUGUST 2): Large sections of the international media are not only misreporting the current conflict in Lebanon. They are actively fanning the flames. The relentless broadcast attacks on Israel have led to some in the print media indulging in explicit anti-Semitism.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...ticle%2FPrinter

WINNING THE PROPAGANDA WAR - JONATHAN COOK (ANTIWAR.COM, AUGUST 4): Israel's military censorship laws are allowing officials to represent, unchallenged, any attack by Hezbollah as an indiscriminate strike against civilian targets. Audiences ought to be alerted to this danger by their media.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=9475

IT'S ABOUT ANNEXATION, STUPID! - KAVEH L. AFRASIABI (ASIA TIMES, AUGUST 5): The facts on the ground speak louder than words and, indeed, what fact is more important than Israeli leaders' announced intention to occupy up to the Litani River? Again, what is understandably omitted in those announcements, adopted as the real reasons by CNN and other US networks, is Israel's predatory lust after Litani's water sources, as well as for new geographical and strategic depth.
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH05Ak01.html

A TRUCE FOR LEBANON EDITORIAL (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 7): This is the week that the international community must impose a truce, to be followed, in short order, by a political settlement and the dispatch of a robust international force to patrol Lebanon?s oft-violated border with Israel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/opinion/...agewanted=print

THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE ADVENTURE - DAVID RIEFF (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 6): Sooner or later, the U.S. is likely to put its weight behind some sort of compromise and cease-fire in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/magazine...agewanted=print

ISRAEL'S BID TO REESTABLISH DETERRENCE IS FAILING - EHSAN AHRARI (ANTIWAR.COM, AUGUST 4): To the dismay of Israeli leaders, what is emerging now is the possibility that there will be a UN-sanctioned cease-fire, whereby international peacekeeping forces will be reintroduced into southern Lebanon and Hezbollah will be disarmed.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/ahrari.php?articleid=9473

ISRAEL'S QUAGMIRE - THOMAS GALE MOORE (ANTIWAR.COM, AUGUST 5): The US and Israel have been calling for a cease-fire, but only after Hezbollah is disarmed and moved away from the border with Israel. Lebanon and Hezbollah may be Israel?s Vietnam.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/moore.php?articleid=9481

LET'S START TALKING - NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 6): Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is shooting Israel and America in the feet (and Lebanon in the stomach) each day that he continues his onslaught, with President Bush enthusiastically providing the ammunition. So let?s stop the killing and start the talking.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/opini...agewanted=print
PAID SUBSCRIPTION

ONE RING TO RULE THEM JUAN COLE (INFORMED COMMENT: THOUGHTS ON THE MIDDLE EAST, HISTORY, AND RELIGION, AUGUST 6): The wholesale destruction of all of Lebanon by Israel and the US Pentagon does not make any sense.
http://www.juancole.com/ (scroll down link for item)

ON TALKING WITH TERRORISTS - PATRICK J. BUCHANAN (ANTIWAR.COM, AUGUST 5): While most Americans wish to maintain our commitment to the security and survival of Israel, we must declare our political and diplomatic independence of Israel, as Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan all did.
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=9480

IS ISRAEL GOOD FOR THE JEWS? - NORMAN BIRNBAUM (NATION, AUGUST 5): The assumption by Israel of the role of US enforcer in the Middle East is certainly no guarantee of Israel's survival. As the Holocaust recedes in time, its grip on the Jewish imagination in both the United States and Israel seems to grow, bringing a host of phantoms to life.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060814/is_i...od_for_the_jews

HEADACHES FOR HEZBOLLAH - R. EMMETT TYRRELL JR. (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 4): One thing is clear. Israel has a very cool ally in the White House.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...03-084702-5942r

PEACEMAKING FORCE NEEDED - MARTIN SCHRAM (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 6): President Bush and his posse of policy enunciators (who spoke so boldly in policy statements about Iraq and Afghanistan) all seemed to speak in an oddly passive voice whenever the subject of Hezbollah was raised in the past two years.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...05-105040-3860r

TO HELP ISRAEL, HELP SYRIA - ANDREW TABLER (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 5): If it is true, as it is reported to be, that Washington seeks to drive a wedge between Hezbollah?s two backers -- Teheran and Damascus -- the Bush administration would do well to modify its democracy agenda to include support for Syrian reform.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/05/opinion/...agewanted=print

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT: ENGAGING SYRIA ISN'T GOING TO WORK - DAVID SCHENKER (WEEKLY STANDARD, AUGUST 14)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...12/551ynkxj.asp

IN CASE WE ALL FORGOT, AMERICANS ARE STILL DYING IN IRAQ - JIMMY BRESLIN (NEW YORK NEWSDAY, AUGUST 6/COMMON DREAMS)
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0806-23.htm

A REALITY CHECK ON IRAQ: WHETHER CIVIL WAR OR UNCIVIL SECTARIAN STRIFE, THE SITUATION IN IRAQ IS GETTING WORSE FAST, AND PUSHING U.S. INVOLVEMENT TO THE BRINK EDITORIAL (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 6)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-...pinion-leftrail

LIFE IN HELL: A TALE OF EVERYDAY STRUGGLE IN THE CHAOS OF BAGHDAD - APARISIM GHOSH (TIME, AUGUST 6)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout...1223363,00.html

A TIMETABLE ISN'T AN EXIT STRATEGY - EDITORIAL (AUGUST 6): As America's military experience in Iraq grows ever more nightmarish, it is becoming clear that President Bush's strategy comes down to this: Keep holding to a failing course for the next 29 months and leave it to the next administration to clean up the mess.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/opinion/...agewanted=print
SEE ALSO
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0606-24.htm

THE GENERALS' WORRY - EDITORIAL (BOSTON GLOBE, AUGUST 5): Staying the course" is unsustainable. Rather than forcing a new administration to figure a way out of Iraq, the Bush administration ought to begin the rethinking now.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...s_worry?mode=PF

DID CONGRESS OK THIS? - EDITORIAL (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, AUGUST 6): U.S. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, raised the intriguing idea that the resolution Congress passed in October 2002 authorizing the use of force in Iraq may no longer apply.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&type=printable

THE IRAQ WAR ENABLERS - BOB HERBERT (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 7): We went into Iraq with bombs falling and guns blazing, insisting all the while that we were bringing the Iraqis the gifts of freedom and democracy. Instead, we gave them terror, chaos and civil war -- in other words, a whole new generation of misery and mass death.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/opini...agewanted=print
PAID SUBSCRIPTION

US IRAQ STRATEGY FAILED: EXPERTS - ISLAMONLINE.NET & NEWSPAPERS (ISLAMONLINE.COM, AUGUST 6)
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2006-08/06/03.shtml

EATING ELASTIC LOAF IN TEHRAN EDITORIAL (JAPAN TIMES, AUGUST 7): Here's what Mr. Ahmadinejad wants, according to the official news agency IRNA's account of a decree he issued last week: Henceforth, all Iranian government agencies, newspapers and publications are to use words deemed appropriate by the state's cultural watchdog, the Farhangestan Zaban e Farsi, or Persian Academy.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ed20060807a1.html

A TALE OF TWO FAILED MIDEAST STATES: THE US SHOULD ACT FORCEFULLY AND NOT ALLOW GAZA AND LEBANON TO REMAIN FAILED STATES - NADAV MORAG (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, AUGUST 7)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0807/p09s01-coop.html

IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT LAND - VICTOR DAVIS HANSON (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST ): There will be no peace in the general Middle East until Iranians and Arabs have true constitutional government, free institutions, open markets and the rule of law.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...04-091356-4614r

WAKE-UP CALL FOR WASHINGTON: COMPLEX NEW MIDDLE EAST TRENDS EDWARD M. GOMEZ (WORLD VIEWS, SF GATE, AUGUST 4)
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/det...5&entry_id=7712

HOW RICE CAN SUCCEED - JIM HOAGLAND (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 6): Rice's task now is to persuade Bush to extend into the Middle East and Persian Gulf the active U.S. pragmatism and concern for multilateral cooperation she has nurtured elsewhere.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0401376_pf.html

CRITICS CITE 'CONSTRAINED' MIDEAST POLICY: U.S. REFUSAL TO ENGAGE SYRIA, IRAN AND PALESTINIANS SAID TO LIMIT NEGOTIATION OPTIONS - GLENN KESSLER AND MICHAEL ABRAMOWITZ (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 6)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0500500_pf.html

'THE US IS THE KISS OF DEATH' IN THE ARAB WORLD - JIM LOBE (ASIA TIMES, AUGUST 5): After almost four weeks of fighting between Lebanon's Hezbollah militia and Israel, the US administration's ambitions to transform the Arab Middle East into a pro-Western, more democratic region are fading fast.
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH05Ak03.html

'MOMENT OF OPPORTUNITY': YES, BUT ONLY IF THE US ASKS ISRAEL THE HARD QUESTIONS - SANDY TOLAN (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, AUGUST 7): The Bush administration continues to cling to the fantasy that a peaceful, prosperous Middle East can be brought about through brute force and capitulation of the enemy.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0807/p09s02-coop.html

A NEW, MESSIER MIDEAST: A BOLDER IRAN, EMPOWERED HAMAS AND HEZBOLLAH, AND DEFENSIVE ISRAEL MEAN A TROUBLED FUTURE - AARON DAVID MILLER (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 6): Never has anti-Americanism been higher and Washington's capacity to affect events been lower.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-...inion-rightrail

WAR: THE GREAT CLARIFIER -- WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST IS REARRANGING THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE ON THE HOME FRONT - JUSTIN RAIMONDO (AUGUST 4): As the Bush administration sinks deeper into the Iraqi quagmire and the neocons plot another foray, this time into Iran, the geopolitical, financial, and domestic political consequences of our war-crazed foreign policy are all too apparent, and whatever else one may say about them, what one cannot say -- with a straight face -- is that they are conducive to conservatism in any way, shape, or form.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9476

ANTI-WAR, ANTI-ISRAEL, ANTI-JOE: THE NEW DEMOCRATS - WILLIAM KRISTOL (WEEKLY STANDARD, AUGUST 14): We have a president who knows we are at war with jihadist Islam. And he is willing to stake his presidency on that fight, and to support others, like Israel, who are in the same fight.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...12/537qsphp.asp

WE'RE LOSING WORLD WAR IV: HOW TO GET BACK TO THE ROAD TO VICTORY - BARBARA LERNER (NATIONAL REVIEW, AUGUST 4): Persian mullahs and their followers aim to restore Islamic supremacy in the 21st century by leading all Muslims everywhere to victory in a great global jihad against America, Israel, and what is left of the free world.
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q...WM0ZTdhNzM0ZWY=

JIHAD AGAINST HEZBOLLAH - STEPHEN ZUNES (FOREIGN POLICY IN FOCUS, AUGUST 5/COMMON DREAMS): The tragedy is how easily the mainstream media and the American public are willing to believe simplistic misinterpretations of the complex Lebanese political situation, and how easily the war on terrorism can be manipulated to justify a U.S.-backed offensive against a small democratic country's civilian infrastructure.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0805-26.htm

HATRED OF THE US IS NOW UNIVERSAL: OSAMA HAS WON - BRIAN CLOUGHLEY (COUNTERPUNCH, AUGUST 4): The reason that America is so detested, distrusted and abominated is that its president and his coterie decided their policy should be total aggression and antagonism.
http://www.counterpunch.org/cloughley08042006.html

BRAVO FOR BOLTON - DAVID LIMBAUGH (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 5): Perhaps the best reason to support John Bolton's confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is that his approach to foreign policy is radically different from John Kerry's.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...04-091357-3096r

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/15221578.htm

-- -- --

Posted on Tue, Aug. 08, 2006
MIDDLE EAST CRISIS

For some evangelicals, Mideast war stirs hope

Believing the Mideast conflict is a sign that Christ will return soon, some evangelical groups have cheered Israel's military actions.

BY ALEXANDRA ALTER

The Rapture Index -- a popular evangelical Christian Web posting that calculates a global rise in natural disasters, war and inflation -- bills itself as ``a Dow Jones industrial average of end-time activity.''

An index below 85 signifies a week of ''slow prophetic activity.'' Anything above 145 signals the apocalypse is near.

The Rapture Index this week: 158. The spike reflects many U.S. evangelicals' view that growing conflict in the Middle East signals the start of a global struggle leading to Christ's return.

''We believe 100 percent what the Scripture has to say about this,'' said Jack Heintz, a South Florida businessman and president of the Christian group Peace for Israel, who recruited 23 evangelical Christians to join a July telephone fundraising event for Israel. ``There's going to be a total battle, the battle of Armageddon, and I believe that's very close to happening.''

Some have ratcheted up support for Israel in its current battle in Lebanon with Hezbollah out of belief that a raging war -- perhaps even a nuclear confrontation -- marks a prelude to the apocalypse. Christian groups are sending millions of dollars to Israeli communities and shelters, hosting pro-Israel rallies and urging U.S. politicians to back Israeli military action.

Evangelicals have issued dire warnings about a conflagration in the Middle East for decades, said Clyde Wilcox, a professor of government at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., who studies evangelicals and politics. Many evangelicals regard such calls with skepticism, he said.

''Every time there's been a war in the Middle East, this comes up,'' Wilcox said. ``Most evangelicals would not interpret this as saying that Christ is coming back in the next couple of years.''

RAISED INTEREST

Since the current crisis erupted July 12, interest in the Rapture Index has mushroomed, said Todd Strandberg, a Christian from Nebraska who updates the index on his website, raptureready.com. The site had a quarter-million unique visitors in July, up from 180,000 the previous month, Strandberg said.

''The Scripture bears witness to these events being part of the end-times prophecy,'' said Gary Cristofaro, pastor of First Assembly of God in Melbourne. ``Israel is so important in God's eyes.''

Cristofaro's church is one of a handful of Florida congregations that tithes a monthly donation to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a practice that stems from a belief that Israel must control the Palestinian territories in order to fulfill biblical prophecy. The congregation has donated more than $100,000 to support Israeli settlements in the past decade, Cristofaro said. On Saturday, church members plan to hold a ''Bless Israel'' fundraising event for 2,000 people.

Evangelicals' financial support for Israel has increasingly been supplemented by political action, Christian and Jewish leaders say.

At a July 18-19 pro-Israel rally in Washington, Christians from Florida and other states lobbied politicians to back Israel's military campaign in Lebanon. The Rev. John Hagee, pastor of a mega-church in San Antonio and founder of Christians United for Israel, organized the convention in hopes of launching a pro-Israel political network in 50 states.

Hagee has issued dire predictions about instability in the region leading to apocalypse. In his 2006 book Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World, Hagee warns: ``The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty. The war of Ezekiel 38-39 could begin before this book gets published.''

Other high-profile Christian leaders have espoused similar views. In a July 22 commentary, the Rev. Jerry Falwell predicted present-day conflict in the Middle East will ''serve as a prelude or forerunner to the future Battle of Armageddon and the glorious return of Jesus Christ.'' Pat Robertson has shied away from declaring Armageddon but has warned ''God himself'' will fight for Israel.

WARY OF SOME EFFORTS

While a number of Jewish leaders have courted evangelicals' support for the Jewish homeland, others are troubled by its theological underpinnings, said Rabbi James Rudin, senior interreligious advisor at the America Jewish Committee in New York. Jewish leaders have long been wary of evangelicals' effort to convert Jews to Christianity through messianic groups such as Jews for Jesus and the Chosen People Ministries.

''Is the motivation to stand up for Israel, or convert the Jewish people and bring on the end of days?'' said Rabbi Solomon Schiff, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Association of Greater Miami.

Other Jewish leaders say evangelicals have toned down the religious aspects of their pro-Israel mission in recent years, particularly their insistence that Jews convert.

Avi Mizrachi, executive director of the Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach, said he was overwhelmed by fervor for Israel at the Washington rally for Christians United for Israel.

''I saw more Israeli flags there than on Israeli independence day,'' he said. `In the past, there was concern about them trying to convert us. It doesn't even come up anymore.''

Christian Zionism -- the belief that Israel will set the stage for prophetic events such as the rise of the Antichrist, the Battle of Armageddon and Christ's 1,000-year reign -- has steadily gained popularity since the rise of the Christian right in the 1970s and '80s, said Timothy Weber, author of On the Road to Armageddon: How Evangelicals Became Israel's Best Friend.

In the most gruesome scenario, evangelicals envision a global battle breaking out when a 200-million-man army invades from the east and Jesus returns to take on the Antichrist. Jews and other non-Christians will face conversion or death.

In the past, some Christians predicted the armies would come from Russia or China, and today, many foresee an Islamic army led by Iran, Weber said.

Hagee and others caution that while Christians may have stepped up preparations for the end times, most believe the fate of the world remains in God's hands.

''No Christian or groups of Christians can do anything to hasten the return of Jesus Christ,'' Hagee said.

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY PRESS AND BLOG REVIEW, AUGUST 8-9

QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

YOUR CALL CANNOT BE COMPLETED BECAUSE THE SUBSCRIBER HAS BEEN BOMBED OR KIDNAPPED.

--One of the most popular messages on Baghdad cellphones, appearing onscreen with the image of a skeleton; cited in Damien Cave, 'Must Haves: Cellphones Top Iraqi Cool List' (New York Times, August 8)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/08/world/mi...8cellphone.html

RETHINKING VISA POLICY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY ? JAMES JAY CARAFANO (WEBMEMO #1191, AMERICAN HERITAGE FOUNDATION): Michael McCarry, Executive Director of the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange, discussed the public diplomacy impact of visa waivers. According to McCarry, the State Department needs to regulate exchange programs in a way that makes the U.S. accessible and welcoming.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/wm1191.cfm

GOOD PR MOVES - (SOUTH TEXAS CHISME : A COLLECTION OF SOUTH TEXAS POLITICAL GOSSIP, AUGUST 9): The Dallas Morning News hearts Karen Hughes in a puff piece, http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...es.21bfe4a.html
Hughes on Mission to Change Views Abroad -- and at Home. For the Republicans, it's all about the imagery. All about the PR. It's faith-base reality all around. And Karen Hughes is a PR master. Statesmanship, not so much.
http://stxc.blogspot.com/2006/08/good-pr-moves.html

DEATH BY DISPROPORTION - MARK STEYN (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 7): Right now, Israel's best chance of any decent press would seem to be if Mel Gibson flies in and bawls out his waiter as a "[expletive] Jew."
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...06-095114-3619r

COMMENTATORS ARE HAVING A POOR MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT - SIMON JENKINS (HUFFINGTON POST, AUGUST 8): 'The commentariat is having a poor Middle East conflict. 'Solutionists' dribble out their six-point plans for peace and interventionists behave as if all the world were fools and only they wise. I almost prefer the propagandists.'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-jenkin...ml?p=2#comments

SNAPSHOTS OF PROPAGANDA WASHINGTON TIMES (AUGUST 9): So when it became clear that a freelance Lebanese photographer was doctoring his photographs of the Israeli-Hezbollah war for Reuters, the London-based news service did the right thing by firing him.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...08-095636-1444r

ISRAEL FIGHTS PROPAGANDA WAR OVER PHONES - DONNA ABU-NASR, ASSOCIATED PRESS (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 8): Cell phones and land lines across Lebanon have been ringing with automated, recorded messages -- part of a propaganda war being waged along with Israel's assault on Lebanon.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0800603_pf.html

"FIASCO" AUTHOR SAYS ISRAEL ALLOWS MISSILE ATTACKS FOR PR PURPOSES ? SPIN OF THE DAY (PR WATCH, CENTER FOR MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY, AUGUST 8): Thomas Ricks, author of the book 'Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq': "One of the things that is going on, according to some U.S. military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon."
http://www.prwatch.org/spin

DESTRUCTION, DEATH, AND DRASTIC MEASURES - DAHR JAMAIL (TOMDISPATCH, AUGUST 8): The Israelis, over-valuing the technology of war and, in particular, of air power (as so many have done before them), began their campaign against Lebanon by using perfectly real bombs and missiles to achieve largely psychological ends -- the humiliation of Hezbollah in the eyes of the Lebanese population. As it turns out, they have indeed changed the psychology of Lebanon -- and possibly of the region. Just not in ways they ever imagined.
http://tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=109209

LEBANON, IRAQ DIVIDE ARAB PUBLICS AND GOVERNMENTS - BUT FRENCH LEADERS GAIN PRESTIGE AT HOME (ECCENTRIC STAR, AUGUST 7)
http://eccentricstar.typepad.com/public_di...on_iraq_di.html

BOMBS OVER BEIRUT: THE KILLING OF CIVILIANS IN LEBANON'S CAPITAL HAS CITIZENS ONCE OPPOSED TO HEZBOLLAH OUTRAGED BY WHAT THEY SEE AS ISRAEL'S INDISCRIMINATE BOMBING - MITCHELL PROTHERO (SALON, AUGUST 9)
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/08/09/beirut/

ISRAEL SHUFFLES COMMAND OF LEBANON OFFENSIVE: MOVE IS SEEN TO SIGNAL DISSATISFACTION; DEADLY CLASHES CONTINUE ALONG BORDER - JONATHAN FINER AND EDWARD CODY (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 9): Although the Israeli public has strongly backed the four-week air and ground campaign, criticism had recently begun to mount about the way it was being conducted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0800734_pf.html

CAMPAIGN AGAINST HEZBOLLAH: ISRAEL BATTLES MOUNTING CRITICISM (SPIEGEL INTERNATIONAL, AUGUST 7)
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/internatio...,430415,00.html

OUR WORLD: TALKIN' ABOUT A REVOLUTION - CAROLINE GLICK (JERUSALEM POST, AUGUST 8): Any cease-fire resolution will do is ensure that there will be another round of war.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...ticle%2FPrinter

THE REGION: QUESTIONS FOR A MULTINATIONAL FORCE - BARRY RUBIN (JERUSALEM POST, AUGUST 8): The Franco-American cease-fire plan looks good. Hizbullah, Iran and Syria want to sabotage it for precisely that reason.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...ticle%2FPrinter

WAR AND DIPLOMACY: THERE IS A WAY FORWARD IN LEBANON EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 8): Hezbollah has sought to function as a political party inside Lebanon's democracy and as an independent armed force that subverts the very same democracy. Any cease-fire that allows it to continue to play both roles unimpeded is unlikely to endure for long.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0701163_pf.html

THE CEASE-FIRE STAKES REVIEW AND OUTLOOK (WALL STREET JOURNAL, AUGUST 8): The U.N. cease-fire resolution for Lebanon offered on the weekend by France and the U.S. isn't everything we might like. But it does show a new international sobriety concerning the Hezbollah problem.
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB1155...0075629428.html
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BUSH, ISLAMIC FASCISM AND THE CHRISTIANS OF JOUNIEH JUAN COLE (INFORMED COMMENT: THOUGHTS ON THE MIDDLE EAST, HISTORY, AND RELIGION, AUGUST 8): Bush lied, saying that no one wants to see the violence continue. He wants to see the violence continue. Otherwise he would insist on a ceasefire.
http://www.juancole.com/

'THE VIOLENCE MUST STOP' - EDITORIAL (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, AUGUST 8): Bush is right that a cease-fire is not a solution in itself; a halt to the hostilities must be accompanied by a commitment to address the "root causes of problems," namely Hezbollah. But the United States would have more credibility as a broker for peace and security if Bush would publicly acknowledge the danger that Israel's sweeping campaign might be sowing the seeds of the type of violence and instability it is trying to quell.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&type=printable

BUSH'S CHANGE OF HEART ON THE MIDDLE EAST: HIS SUPPORT FOR A CEASE-FIRE WAS SLOW IN COMING, BUT THE PROPOSAL RECLAIMS THE MORAL HIGH GROUND EDITORIAL (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 8): It would be in Israel's interest to associate itself with Bush's promise Monday that "as these Lebanese and international forces deploy, the Israeli defense forces will withdraw."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-...pinion-leftrail

TIGERS AND HORSES@TURTLE BAY' A TEST FOR THE U.N. IN LEBANON - JOHN O'SULLIVAN (NATIONAL REVIEW, AUGUST 8): It now seems likely -- not definite but likely -- that a ceasefire will be in place before Israel has achieved its objective of destroying Hezbollah as a military force.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmE1O...jJiOTE0MmZiM2E=

BUFFETT AND HEZBOLLAH - THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 9): Israel needs to get a cease-fire and an international force into south Lebanon -- and get out.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/opini...agewanted=print
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WORST PRESS CONFERENCE EVER: DOES PRESIDENT BUSH UNDERSTAND HIS OWN FOREIGN POLICY? - FRED KAPLAN (SLATE, AUGUST 8): Bush made a statement that curiously veered off script: "People understand that there needs to be a cessation of hostilities in order for us to address the root causes of the problem." This contradicted Rice's mantra of the last two weeks -- that there should be no cessation until these root causes are addressed.
http://www.slate.com/id/2147346/

SAVING FACE, NOT LIVES - IAN WILLIAMS (TOMPAINE.COM, AUGUST 8): The Arab League has an offer on the table: recognition of Israel and a comprehensive peace settlement based on the 1967 boundaries. The U.S. could reinforce that with a message to Israel that the U.S. will pledge defense of those boundaries but no further. No more weapons deliveries until after a ceasefire.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/08/0...e_not_lives.php

I AM PRO-ISRAEL, THEREFORE I CRITICIZE ISRAEL - IRA CHERNUS (COMMON DREAMS, AUGUST 7): Unfortunately few Jews, in Israel or the U.S., will admit that the Israeli government's effort to postpone peace is just another example of a long-standing pattern.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0807-29.htm

THE LOSER IN LEBANON: THE ATLANTIC ALLIANCE - MARK PERRY AND ALASTAIR CROOKE (ASIA TIMES, AUGUST 8): At issue is US and Israeli terminology, which tends to paint Muslims as terrorists and Israelis as Westerners fighting for civilization.
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH08Ak01.html

CONDI'S GAMBIT: HOPE FOR THE WORST - BRET STEPHENS (OPINION JOURNAL FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL PAGE, AUGUST 9): An Israeli military victory remains the best and likeliest way for the U.S. to achieve its basic strategic objectives in the conflict.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/wsj/?id=110008769

ISRAEL COULD WIN THE PEACE, FOR ONCE - MICHAEL OREN (WALL STREET JOURNAL, AUGUST 8): The United States and its allies can no longer rely on Israel alone to check the Iranian threat. Realizing that, the Security Council is poised to adopt a resolution laying the groundwork for the U.N.'s first-ever armed intervention in the Middle East.
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB1155...7009629450.html
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DEBACLE AT THE U.N. EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 9): Washington should be prepared to veto a resolution demanding that Israel withdraw immediately and turn southern Lebanon over to a Lebanese army that cannot stand up to Hezbollah on principle, rather than permit the Security Council to adopt a farcical proposal that serves Hezbollah's propaganda and military interests.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...08-095629-3900r

DEATH AND DESTRUCTION ARE HEZBOLLAH'S GOALS - ANDREA LEVIN (BOSTON GLOBE, AUGUST 8): The Great Satan and the Little Satan -- America and Israel -- are the obsession of Hezbollah, Iran, Al Qaeda, and other Islamic fascists. Closing our eyes to their brutality only assures more innocent lives will be lost before the threat is overcome.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...s_goals?mode=PF

APOCALYPSE SOON: AS ISRAEL BATTERS LEBANON, SOME PROPHETIC SOULS HEAR THE TRUMPETS SOUNDING -- BUT WHY? IS IT THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT? AND DO EVANGELICALS FEEL FINE? - JASON BOYETT (SALON, AUGUST 7): The pro-Israel evangelical vote helped get George W. Bush elected in 2000 and 2004. That same constituency is behind the Bush administration's refusal to back down from support of Israel, despite escalating violence to civilians in the Israel-Lebanon war.
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/08/0...ypse/print.html

AN END TO UNILATERALISM: WHAT ISRAEL AND THE U.S. WANTED MAY NOT BE AT ALL WHAT THEY GET - NADIA HIJAB (COUNTERPUNCH, AUGUST 7): If the US administration really wants a sustainable solution in Lebanon, it will have to acknowledge the links to Syria's determination to restore the Golan, the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, and Lebanese demands that Israel respect its sovereignty.
http://www.counterpunch.org/hijab08072006.html

IRAQ: WHERE ALTERNATIVE REALITY MEETS THE REAL WORLD - ROBERT J. ELISBERG (HUFFINGTON POST, AUGUST 8): The reality on the table is that for three years the Bush Administration has been consistently saying everything is actually going well. Wonderfully. "Impressive." To go from that, instantly, to disaster and civil war requires an honest recognition of what has been going on all along.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-eli...html?view=print

WHERE'S HARRY TRUMAN? - LAWRENCE KUDLOW (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 8): After three democratic elections in Iraq, a wondrous advance for democracy, it still does not seem that we are winning this war. And if we are not winning it, then one has to worry about the possibility that we may lose it. And that would be a very bad thing.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...07-100030-5889r

MAX BOOT: RADICAL IDEAS FOR IRAQ: THE CURRENT STRATEGY ISN'T WORKING. WE EITHER NEED MORE TROOPS OR A LOT FEWER - MAX BOOT (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 9): Bush needs to do something radical to shake up a deteriorating status quo if we are to have any hope of averting the worst American military defeat since Vietnam.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-...inion-rightrail

KISS IRAQ GOODBYE IF SHIITES ALIGN WITH HEZBOLLAH: HOW FALLOUT FROM LEBANON COULD CHOKE A FRAGILE U.S.-MUSLIM ALLIANCE - RAJAN MENON (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 9)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-...inion-rightrail

THE CITY IS DYING: REQUIEM FOR BAGHDAD - PATRICK COCKBURN (COUNTERPUNCH, AUGUST 8)
http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick08082006.html

SO WHAT'S OUR ROLE IN IRAQ'S CIVIL WAR? - HAROLD MEYERSON (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 9): If Iraqis have embarked on a bloody partition of their nation -- and to all appearances they have -- then the one remaining task for any non-indigenous force within Iraq is to help ensure that that division takes place with as little slaughter as possible.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0800941_pf.html

RUMSFELD SHOULD BE HEEDED ON IRAQ FIGHT - CAL THOMAS (BALTIMORE SUN, AUGUST 9): Rumsfeld: "We can persevere in Iraq or we can withdraw prematurely, until they force us to make a stand nearer home. But make no mistake: They are not going to give up, whether we acquiesce in their immediate demands or not." Mr. Rumsfeld is right.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines

IRAN'S CHANGING FORTUNES - NEDA BOLOURCHI (ASIA TIMES, AUGUST 9): Pragmatists argue that the administration of US President George W. Bush may have no other option but to include Tehran in negotiations in the Lebanon crisis or be left out in the cold -- a reality that has befallen US administrations since 1979.
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH09Ak02.html

AUGUST 22 - BERNARD LEWIS (WALL STREET JOURNAL, AUGUST 8): There is a radical difference between the Islamic Republic of Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons. This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the apocalyptic worldview of Iran's present rulers.
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB1155...4638829470.html
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U.S.-IRAN PROXY WAR - ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 7): Intentionally or not, Mr. Bush jettisoned any future role as honest broker between Israelis and Palestinians for the rest of his administration; his campaign for freedom and democratic transformation lost in the sands of Araby.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...06-095116-1394r

START TALKING EDITORIAL (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 8): The price for not trying in the Middle East to talk will be more fury toward the United States and our few remaining allies in the region. That?s no reward.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/08/opinion/...agewanted=print

SHRUGS FOR THE DEAD - NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 8): In the case of the Middle East, it's time to use the crisis to push for a major settlement between Israel and Lebanon, even if that means Israel gives up Shebaa Farms and the U.S. engages in direct talks with Syria.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/08/08/opini...agewanted=print
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U.S. CLOUT A MISSING INGREDIENT IN MIDEAST: INEXPERIENCED AND MISTRUSTED IN REGION, THE ADMINISTRATION FACES A HARD ROAD, ANALYSTS SAY - TYLER MARSHALL AND ALISSA J. RUBIN (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 8): The Bush administration faces an unprecedented level of anti-American feeling in the Arab world, emotions driven in part by its image as an unquestioning supporter of Israel and by allegations of U.S. torture and abuse of Muslim detainees in places such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/l...1,2157213.story

ISRAEL'S MISGUIDED STRATEGIES - H.D.S. GREENWAY (BOSTON GLOBE, AUGUST 8): The messianic aspects of America's current leadership came to the fore when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talked about the present crisis in Lebanon being "the birth pangs of a new Middle East." As in Iraq, however, Rice's new Middle East will almost certainly be more dangerous and destructive to our interests than the old.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...ategies?mode=PF

GREATER MIDDLE EAST" VS. "NEW MIDDLE EAST" (PEOPLE'S DAILY, BEIJING, AUGUST 7): The Middle East issue is not a matter that can be decided or controlled by the United States alone. The "new Middle East" is very likely to be a wishful thinking of the United States.
http://english.people.com.cn/200608/07/eng...807_290568.html

DEMOCRACY AN[D] ITS DISCONTENTS: BIRTH PANGS OF FREEDOM IN THE MIDDLE EAST - PETER WEHNER (OPINION JOURNAL FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL PAGE): We may well be present at the creation of something remarkable in the Arab world; but it will not come to pass without hardships. That is the nature of historic transitions, which can be jolting and where progress can be uneven. (Mr. Wehner is deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House's Office of Strategic Initiatives.)
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/fe...ml?id=110008771

THE F WORLD: GETTING TO THE HEART OF THE MATTER - RICH LOWRY (NATIONAL REVIEW, AUGUST 8): All around the chaotic and violent Middle East, human hearts are yearning for many things, but freedom isn't high on the list.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTExN...mE1MzNlODY1YmI=

MIXED MESSAGE: IN VOLATILE MIDEAST, U.S. FINDS A USE FOR OLD AUTOCRATS; AS ELECTIONS BOOST ISLAMISTS, DEMOCRACY PUSH FALTERS IN EGYPT, SAUDI ARABIA; RED CARPET FOR MUBARAK HEIR - NEIL KING JR. AND YASMINE EL-RASHIDI (WALL STREET JOURNAL, AUGUST 8)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1155000923...=hps_us_pageone
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ANTI-U.S. FEELING LEAVES ARAB REFORMERS ISOLATED - NEIL MACFARQUHAR (INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, AUGUST 9): The very people whom the United States wanted to encourage to promote democracy from Bahrain to Casablanca instead feel trapped by a policy that they now ridicule more or less as "destroying the region in order to save it."
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file...b.0809arabs.php

ISRAEL'S WAY OUT: HEZBOLLAH AND HAMAS ATTACKS HAVE BACKED IT INTO A CORNER. ESCALATION AGAINST IRAN AND SYRIA MIGHT BE THE BEST HOPE - DANIEL JONAH GOLDHAGEN (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 8)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...-opinion-center

THE CURRENT BATTLE EDITORS (NATIONAL REVIEW, AUGUST 8): The U.S. has an interest in seeing the hostile states of Syria and Iran weakened through their proxy Hezbollah, so it is a disappointment that Israel isn?t decisively winning against the terror group. But this is part of a broad, ongoing struggle with Islamism for control of the Middle East.There will be other battles.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGVjY...jgxZGFhZTA3Y2U=

MIDEAST MADNESS - ARNOLD BEICHMAN (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 9): Like Nazism, radical Islam does not recognize the right of Jewish existence, let alone as an independent state. No compromise with radical Islam on this question is attainable today or in the near future.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...08-095627-4588r

IN MIDEAST, SHADES OF 1982 - AUGUSTUS RICHARD NORTON (BOSTON GLOBE AUGUST 7): As for President Bush, he flashed a green light for Israel. He found the opportunity to decimate Hezbollah and to signal to Iran "you may be next" too delicious to pass up. It is still early for a requiem, but one has to wonder whether the 2000-2006 period might, in a year or so, look pretty good compared to the new realities and new violence that history warns us to expect.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...of_1982?mode=PF

HAWKISH GLOOM: UNFORTUNATELY, YOU?LL BE JOINING ME ONE OF THESE DAYS - STANLEY KURTZ (NATIONAL REVIEW, AUGUST 8): The entire Western world now stands in a position roughly analogous to that of Israel: locked in an essentially permanent struggle with a foe it is impossible either to placate, or to entirely destroy -- a foe who demands our own destruction, and whose problems are so deep they would not be solved even by victory.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGFlY...TY4YzZhZWJmY2E=

TERRORISM? WHAT'S THAT: THE U.N. HAS A DEEPLY DANGEROUS DEFINITIONAL PROBLEM CLAUDIA ROSETT (NATIONAL REVIEW, AUGUST 8): In the battles ahead, if the U.S. takes its cues from a U.N. unable even to define terrorism, let alone defy it, the result will be that terrorists -- protected by their patrons at the U.N. itself -- will continue in graphic and ruinous terms to define it for us.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MWQyN...zc1NTE2ODQ4YzQ=

COUNTERING TERROR - JOSHUA SINAI (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 8): The theme of Emanuel Gross' "The Struggle of Democracy Against Terrorism" is that international laws of war were designed primarily to govern the conduct of warfare between sovereign states, but not between democratic states and terrorist groups. As Mr. Gross writes, the struggle between terrorist groups and states "differs fundamentally from traditional armed conflicts because of the terrorists' disregard for the laws of war."
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...07-100021-5499r

IS THE WEST TOO CIVIL IN WAR? - CATHY YOUNG (BOSTON GLOBE, AUGUST 7): The danger we face from terrorism today is hardly comparable to being at war with Hitler's empire.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial..._in_war?mode=PF

DIPLOMATIC WIND - TONY BLANKLEY (THE WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 9): It is still believed that we can somehow finesse radical Islamist terrorism with sweet talk. This is going to be a bloody fight to the death between civilization and Islamist barbarity -- made more bloody the longer we wait to take the threat seriously.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...08-095631-4869r

OLMERT, BUSH: TWO OF A KIND - HARLAN ULLMAN (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 9): Our strategy and its assumptions are flawed. Worse, the term global war on terror is no longer simply ill-named (and kudos to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in trying to rename it the struggle against violent extremism). It is dangerous.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...08-095625-3678r

WHY WE DON'T KNOW OUR ENEMY - ROBERT SCHEER (TRUTHDIG, AUGUST 8): In the name of stopping the new bogeyman of international terrorism, our government has claimed an unfettered right to torture foreigners, eavesdrop on citizens and reorder the world with our military might.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200608...ont_know_enemy/

Why the Dems Have Failed Lebanon
Stephen Zunes | August 9, 2006

Editor: John Feffer, IRC

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3423

Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org


The Bush administration's unconditional support for Israel's attacks on Lebanon is emblematic of the profound tragedy of U.S. policy in the region over the past five years. The administration has relied largely on force rather than diplomacy. It has shown a willingness to violate international legal norms, a callousness regarding massive civilian casualties, a dismissive attitude toward our closest allies whose security interests we share, and blatant double standards on UN Security Council resolutions, non-proliferation issues, and human rights. A broad consensus of moderate Arabs, Middle East scholars, independent security analysts, European leaders, and others have recognized how—even putting important moral and legal issues aside—such policies have been a disaster for the national security interests of the United States and other Western nations. These policies have only further radicalized the region and increased support for Hezbollah and other extremists and supporters of terrorism.

The Democratic Party could seize upon these tragic miscalculations by the Bush administration to enhance its political standing and help steer America's foreign policy in a more rational and ethical direction. Instead, the Democrats have once again overwhelmingly thrown their support behind the president and his right-wing counterpart, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Supporting the Israeli Offensive
Soon after Israel began its offensive on July 12, House Republican leader John Boehner, along with House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, introduced a resolution unconditionally supporting Israel's military actions and commending President Bush for fully supporting the Israeli assault. Despite reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that Israel (and, to a lesser extent, Hezbollah) were committing war crimes in attacking civilians, the resolution praised Israel for its “longstanding commitment to minimize civilian loss” and even welcomed “Israel's continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties.” The resolution also claimed that Israel's actions were “in accordance with international law,” though they flew in the face of longstanding, universally recognized legal standards regarding the use of force and the treatment of non-combatants in wartime.

Despite such a brazen attack against the credibility of reputable human rights groups and the UN Charter that limits military action to legitimate self defense, Rep. Tom Lantos signed on as a full co-sponsor. Lantos is the ranking Democrat on the International Relations Committee and likely to chair the committee should the Democrats win back the majority in November. Even more alarmingly, all but fifteen of the 201 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted in favor or the resolution.

In supporting the Republican-authored resolution, Pennsylvania Democrat Allyson Schwartz invoked the September 11 tragedy and insisted that the United States had a “moral obligation” to “stand by” Israel “on the side of democracy and freedom versus terror and radicalism” since to do otherwise would “undermine our national security.” Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler of Florida praised Israel's efforts “to eradicate this global threat” and insisted that Syria and Iran should be held responsible for the violence. Even though the Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel began only after Israel started bombing civilian areas of Lebanon, Democratic Congressman Rush Holt of New Jersey insisted that the killings of these Israeli civilians took place “despite every attempt” by the Israeli government “to demonstrate their genuine commitment to peace.”

One reason for such broad Democratic support for the resolution may stem from the fact that the Arms Control Export Act forbids arms transfers to countries that use American weapons for non-defensive purposes, such as attacking civilians. Thus, in order to protect the profits of politically influential American arms merchants, the Democrats joined with Republicans in supporting language in the resolution claiming that Israel's actions were “legitimate self-defense.”

The Senate endorsed by a voice vote a similar resolution unconditionally supporting Israel's military offensive. Introduced by Republican Senate leader Bill Frist, the resolution was co-sponsored by Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and the majority of Senate Democrats, including Barack Obama and Dick Durbin of Illinois, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California, Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, Edward Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts, Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, and Barbara Mikulski and Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, among others.

The Democrats' support for the Bush administration's defiance of the international community was most clearly articulated by Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York, another co-sponsor of the resolution, who claimed that the European community and others who called on Israel to “show restraint” believed that “Israel should not be given the ability to defend herself” and that those who advocated “any other course” than that pursued by the Bush administration and Israeli government would constitute an “appeasement of Hezbollah.”

Hillary Takes the Lead
Yet another Democratic co-sponsor of the Senate resolution was Hillary Rodham Clinton, a front-runner for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 2008. Speaking at a rally in New York City in support of the Israeli attacks against Lebanon, she praised Israel's efforts to “send a message to Hamas, Hezbollah, to the Syrians [and] to the Iranians,” because, in her words, they oppose the United States and Israel's commitment to “life and freedom.”

Clinton's statements were challenged by her opponent in the Democratic primary for Senate, union activist Jonathan Tasini, who pointed out that “Israel has committed acts that violate international standards and the Geneva Conventions,” citing reports by a number of reputable human rights organizations, including the Israeli group B'Tselem. Clinton's spokesperson dismissed Tasini's concerns about Israeli violations of international humanitarian law as “beyond the pale.”

Tasini, a former Israeli citizen who has lost close relatives in the Arab-Israeli wars and Palestinian terrorism and whose father fought and was wounded in the Israeli war of independence, correctly observed that “Hezbollah's actions violate international law” as well. He argued that his criticism of Israel's policy of collective punishment and attacks on civilians comes from the perspective of being a “friend of Israel,” citing the Jewish tradition of Tikkun Olam, or “repairing the world.” Facing vicious attacks from Clinton supporters for his liberal views, Tasini has called for a debate with his opponent to demonstrate how her unconditional U.S. support for Israeli militarism actually threatens Israel's security interests. The Anglo-Saxon Protestant Clinton, who—like the vast majority of the overwhelmingly WASP Democratic Party leadership—has never lost a relative to the region's violence, has thus far refused the challenge.

Democrats Attack Maliki
The perversity of the Democrats' Middle East policies can be illustrated in their reaction to the visit to Washington in July by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Maliki's government, primarily through its Interior ministry, has been responsible for the ethnic cleansing of thousands of Sunni Arabs in Baghdad and elsewhere and the massacre of hundreds more. Amnesty International and other reputable human rights groups have documented gross and systematic human rights violations by Maliki's government, including torture and ill treatment, arbitrary detention without charge or trial, and the excessive use of force resulting in countless civilian deaths.

With so much blood on Maliki's hands, one would think that at least some Democrats would have chosen to protest or even boycott his speech before a joint session of Congress on July 26. Yet few concerns were aired. However, once the Iraqi prime minister criticized Israel's attacks on Lebanon, only then did the Democratic leadership decide to speak out against the Iraqi prime minister.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi stated that unless the Iraqi Prime Minister “disavows his critical comments of Israel … it is inappropriate to honor him with a joint meeting of Congress.” Given that the leaders of America's most important allies have also made critical comments about Israel's offensive, very few foreign dignitaries will be given such an honor in the coming years if the minority leader's recommendations are followed.

The Democrats' offensive against Maliki may have been part of a broader campaign to oppose discontent within their own ranks regarding criticism of the Israeli offensive. For example, Democratic Congressman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois declared that the Iraqi prime minister's comments inflicted “hate upon another democracy,” linking criticism of a particular Israeli policy with hate against Israel (an important warning, given that he heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.) Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky of Pennsylvania claimed that Maliki, in criticizing Israel's attacks against civilian targets in Lebanon, had “condemned Israel's right to defend itself against terrorism,” an apparent effort to equate criticisms of Israeli war crimes with denying Israel's legitimate right to self-defense. Senator Schumer claimed that Maliki's criticisms of the Israeli destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure and the large-scale killings of Lebanese civilians raised questions as to “which side is he on in the war on terror,” thereby insinuating that those who oppose Israeli attacks against civilians are supporters of al-Qaida. Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean, in a speech on July 26, went so far as to insist that Maliki was an “anti-Semite,” perhaps as a warning to party liberals that anyone who dared criticize any policy of America's top Middle Eastern ally would be subjected to similar slander.

Ironically, 2004 Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry defended his support for the Iraq war by claiming that sacrificing American lives to defend the Iraqi government was worthwhile in part “because it's important for Israel.” In other words, the Democrats want it both ways: condemning the Iraqi government for being “anti-Israel” while justifying the ongoing U.S. war in Iraq because the Iraqi government is “pro-Israel.”

Behind the Democrats' Hawkish Stance
The decision by Democratic members of Congress to take such hard-line positions against international law and human rights does not stem from the fear that it would jeopardize their re-election. Public opinion polls show that a sizable majority of Americans believe U.S. foreign policy should support these principles. More specifically, only a minority of Americans, according to a recent New York Times poll, support President Bush's handling of the situation or agree that the United States should give unconditional support to Israel in its war on Lebanon.

Nor is it a matter of Democratic lawmakers somehow being forced against their will to back Bush's policy by Jewish voters and campaign contributors. In reality, Jewish public opinion is divided over the wisdom and morality of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon. More significantly, the vast majority of Democrats who supported the resolution came from very safe districts where a reduction in campaign contributions would not have had a negative impact on their re-election in any case.

Perhaps more important than pressure from right-wing political action committees allied with the Israeli government to support the Bush administration's backing of the Israeli attacks has been the absence of pressure from the liberal groups who oppose such policies.

For example, MoveOn not only continues to work for the re-election of many prominent Democratic hawks who backed Boehmer's resolution, but has not even sent out an alert to its supporters to contact their representatives and senators to protest their defense of Israeli attacks or to support proposed House resolutions calling for a cease-fire. And while Peace Action, the country's largest peace group, has called on its supporters to encourage their elected officials to back a cease-fire, its political action committee turned back efforts to rescind endorsements of incumbents who supported the House resolution.

This reticence contrasts with other foreign policy issues related to international law and human rights from U.S. intervention in Central America during the 1980s to Iraq today. In these other cases, liberal groups made it a priority to hold their elected representatives in Washington accountable for backing administration policy. However, it appears that if the victims of such policies are Lebanese or Palestinian civilians, there are—with some notable exceptions—few organized protests heard on Capitol Hill. With so little pressure from progressive groups, elected representatives have little inclination to withdraw support for administration policy toward Israel and its neighbors.

In reality, the Democrats' support for Israeli attacks against Lebanon is quite consistent with their support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In both cases, Democrats rushed to the defense of right-wing governments that have run roughshod over international legal norms, that have gone well beyond their legitimate right to self-defense, and that have taken an incredible toll in innocent civilian lives.

For example, when President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in violation of the UN Charter, only eleven House Democrats voted against a resolution that “reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone” could not “adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.” If such an overwhelming majority of Democrats believe that the United States invading a country disarmed of its offensive military capabilities, overthrowing its government, and indefinitely occupying its territory is an act of self-defense, it would be quite easy for them to believe the same about Israel's assault against its northern neighbor. Indeed, to this day, despite not finding any “weapons of mass destruction,” an overwhelming majority of Democrats in both houses of Congress continue to support funding the war despite polls that show a growing majority of Americans now oppose it.

In other words, the Democratic Party's support for Israel's attacks on Lebanon is quite consistent with its disdain for international law and human rights elsewhere and its defiance of public opinion on other foreign policy issues. It is not, therefore, something that can simply be blamed on “the Zionist lobby.” Rather, it indicates that the Democrats' worldview is essentially the same as that of the Republicans.

This ideological congruence calls into question whether the increasingly likely prospect of the Democrats regaining a majority in Congress in November will make any real difference on the foreign policy front. Many supporters of human rights and international law are debating whether to continue to support the Democratic Party or instead support the Green Party or other minor parties that embrace such principles.

The tragic misdirection in U.S. foreign policy in recent years cannot be blamed on the Bush administration alone.


Stephen Zunes is Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus. He is a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003).

'New Middle East' Out Of Control
by Jim Lobe, TomPaine.com
A growing number of foreign policy veterans fear the U.S. is courting disaster.
http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=pkglqxbab.0.xsekqx..._of_control.php

Outside the Tent: Times Coverage of Israel Is Full of Holes

When it comes to local Jews' relationship with Israel, this paper
just doesn't get it, says a rabbi. By Abraham Cooper.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/e6s...Io30G2B0HmY30EE

Outside the Tent: What The Times Isn't Telling You About Hezbollah

Why does this paper take Israel's side? asks a Muslim leader. By
Salam Al-Marayati and Edina Lekovic.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/e6s...Io30G2B0HmY40EF

As Mideast Smoke Clears, Political Fates May Shift

By Robin Wright

It was a very close call. U.N. diplomats assembled at 3 p.m. in the cavernous Security Council hall to get the U.S.-French proposal to end an excruciating month of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. The United States had Lebanon's approval but still had not received word from Israel. U.S....

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

In Mideast, It's Condi's Fight Now

By James Mann

If things really fall apart in the Middle East, so will Condoleezza Rice's political prospects and the ambitious ideas she has worked so hard to advance.

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060821fa_fact

WATCHING LEBANON
Washington’s interests in Israel’s war.
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2006-08-21
Posted 2006-08-14


In the days after Hezbollah crossed from Lebanon into Israel, on July 12th, to kidnap two soldiers, triggering an Israeli air attack on Lebanon and a full-scale war, the Bush Administration seemed strangely passive. “It’s a moment of clarification,” President George W. Bush said at the G-8 summit, in St. Petersburg, on July 16th. “It’s now become clear why we don’t have peace in the Middle East.” He described the relationship between Hezbollah and its supporters in Iran and Syria as one of the “root causes of instability,” and subsequently said that it was up to those countries to end the crisis. Two days later, despite calls from several governments for the United States to take the lead in negotiations to end the fighting, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that a ceasefire should be put off until “the conditions are conducive.”

The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.

Israeli military and intelligence experts I spoke to emphasized that the country’s immediate security issues were reason enough to confront Hezbollah, regardless of what the Bush Administration wanted. Shabtai Shavit, a national-security adviser to the Knesset who headed the Mossad, Israel’s foreign-intelligence service, from 1989 to 1996, told me, “We do what we think is best for us, and if it happens to meet America’s requirements, that’s just part of a relationship between two friends. Hezbollah is armed to the teeth and trained in the most advanced technology of guerrilla warfare. It was just a matter of time. We had to address it.”

Hezbollah is seen by Israelis as a profound threat—a terrorist organization, operating on their border, with a military arsenal that, with help from Iran and Syria, has grown stronger since the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon ended, in 2000. Hezbollah’s leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has said he does not believe that Israel is a “legal state.” Israeli intelligence estimated at the outset of the air war that Hezbollah had roughly five hundred medium-range Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 rockets and a few dozen long-range Zelzal rockets; the Zelzals, with a range of about two hundred kilometres, could reach Tel Aviv. (One rocket hit Haifa the day after the kidnappings.) It also has more than twelve thousand shorter-range rockets. Since the conflict began, more than three thousand of these have been fired at Israel.

According to a Middle East expert with knowledge of the current thinking of both the Israeli and the U.S. governments, Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah—and shared it with Bush Administration officials—well before the July 12th kidnappings. “It’s not that the Israelis had a trap that Hezbollah walked into,” he said, “but there was a strong feeling in the White House that sooner or later the Israelis were going to do it.”

The Middle East expert said that the Administration had several reasons for supporting the Israeli bombing campaign. Within the State Department, it was seen as a way to strengthen the Lebanese government so that it could assert its authority over the south of the country, much of which is controlled by Hezbollah. He went on, “The White House was more focussed on stripping Hezbollah of its missiles, because, if there was to be a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities, it had to get rid of the weapons that Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation at Israel. Bush wanted both. Bush was going after Iran, as part of the Axis of Evil, and its nuclear sites, and he was interested in going after Hezbollah as part of his interest in democratization, with Lebanon as one of the crown jewels of Middle East democracy.”

Administration officials denied that they knew of Israel’s plan for the air war. The White House did not respond to a detailed list of questions. In response to a separate request, a National Security Council spokesman said, “Prior to Hezbollah’s attack on Israel, the Israeli government gave no official in Washington any reason to believe that Israel was planning to attack. Even after the July 12th attack, we did not know what the Israeli plans were.” A Pentagon spokesman said, “The United States government remains committed to a diplomatic solution to the problem of Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program,” and denied the story, as did a State Department spokesman.

The United States and Israel have shared intelligence and enjoyed close military coöperation for decades, but early this spring, according to a former senior intelligence official, high-level planners from the U.S. Air Force—under pressure from the White House to develop a war plan for a decisive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities—began consulting with their counterparts in the Israeli Air Force.

“The big question for our Air Force was how to hit a series of hard targets in Iran successfully,” the former senior intelligence official said. “Who is the closest ally of the U.S. Air Force in its planning? It’s not Congo—it’s Israel. Everybody knows that Iranian engineers have been advising Hezbollah on tunnels and underground gun emplacements. And so the Air Force went to the Israelis with some new tactics and said to them, ‘Let’s concentrate on the bombing and share what we have on Iran and what you have on Lebanon.’ ” The discussions reached the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he said.

“The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. “Why oppose it? We’ll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran.”

A Pentagon consultant said that the Bush White House “has been agitating for some time to find a reason for a preëmptive blow against Hezbollah.” He added, “It was our intent to have Hezbollah diminished, and now we have someone else doing it.” (As this article went to press, the United Nations Security Council passed a ceasefire resolution, although it was unclear if it would change the situation on the ground.)

According to Richard Armitage, who served as Deputy Secretary of State in Bush’s first term—and who, in 2002, said that Hezbollah “may be the A team of terrorists”—Israel’s campaign in Lebanon, which has faced unexpected difficulties and widespread criticism, may, in the end, serve as a warning to the White House about Iran. “If the most dominant military force in the region—the Israel Defense Forces—can’t pacify a country like Lebanon, with a population of four million, you should think carefully about taking that template to Iran, with strategic depth and a population of seventy million,” Armitage said. “The only thing that the bombing has achieved so far is to unite the population against the Israelis.”



Several current and former officials involved in the Middle East told me that Israel viewed the soldiers’ kidnapping as the opportune moment to begin its planned military campaign against Hezbollah. “Hezbollah, like clockwork, was instigating something small every month or two,” the U.S. government consultant with ties to Israel said. Two weeks earlier, in late June, members of Hamas, the Palestinian group, had tunnelled under the barrier separating southern Gaza from Israel and captured an Israeli soldier. Hamas also had lobbed a series of rockets at Israeli towns near the border with Gaza. In response, Israel had initiated an extensive bombing campaign and reoccupied parts of Gaza.

The Pentagon consultant noted that there had also been cross-border incidents involving Israel and Hezbollah, in both directions, for some time. “They’ve been sniping at each other,” he said. “Either side could have pointed to some incident and said ‘We have to go to war with these guys’—because they were already at war.”

David Siegel, the spokesman at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said that the Israeli Air Force had not been seeking a reason to attack Hezbollah. “We did not plan the campaign. That decision was forced on us.” There were ongoing alerts that Hezbollah “was pressing to go on the attack,” Siegel said. “Hezbollah attacks every two or three months,” but the kidnapping of the soldiers raised the stakes.

In interviews, several Israeli academics, journalists, and retired military and intelligence officers all made one point: they believed that the Israeli leadership, and not Washington, had decided that it would go to war with Hezbollah. Opinion polls showed that a broad spectrum of Israelis supported that choice. “The neocons in Washington may be happy, but Israel did not need to be pushed, because Israel has been wanting to get rid of Hezbollah,” Yossi Melman, a journalist for the newspaper Ha’aretz, who has written several books about the Israeli intelligence community, said. “By provoking Israel, Hezbollah provided that opportunity.”

“We were facing a dilemma,” an Israeli official said. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert “had to decide whether to go for a local response, which we always do, or for a comprehensive response—to really take on Hezbollah once and for all.” Olmert made his decision, the official said, only after a series of Israeli rescue efforts failed.

The U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel told me, however, that, from Israel’s perspective, the decision to take strong action had become inevitable weeks earlier, after the Israeli Army’s signals intelligence group, known as Unit 8200, picked up bellicose intercepts in late spring and early summer, involving Hamas, Hezbollah, and Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader now living in Damascus.

One intercept was of a meeting in late May of the Hamas political and military leadership, with Meshal participating by telephone. “Hamas believed the call from Damascus was scrambled, but Israel had broken the code,” the consultant said. For almost a year before its victory in the Palestinian elections in January, Hamas had curtailed its terrorist activities. In the late May intercepted conversation, the consultant told me, the Hamas leadership said that “they got no benefit from it, and were losing standing among the Palestinian population.” The conclusion, he said, was “ ‘Let’s go back into the terror business and then try and wrestle concessions from the Israeli government.’ ” The consultant told me that the U.S. and Israel agreed that if the Hamas leadership did so, and if Nasrallah backed them up, there should be “a full-scale response.” In the next several weeks, when Hamas began digging the tunnel into Israel, the consultant said, Unit 8200 “picked up signals intelligence involving Hamas, Syria, and Hezbollah, saying, in essence, that they wanted Hezbollah to ‘warm up’ the north.” In one intercept, the consultant said, Nasrallah referred to Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz “as seeming to be weak,” in comparison with the former Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak, who had extensive military experience, and said “he thought Israel would respond in a small-scale, local way, as they had in the past.”



Earlier this summer, before the Hezbollah kidnappings, the U.S. government consultant said, several Israeli officials visited Washington, separately, “to get a green light for the bombing operation and to find out how much the United States would bear.” The consultant added, “Israel began with Cheney. It wanted to be sure that it had his support and the support of his office and the Middle East desk of the National Security Council.” After that, “persuading Bush was never a problem, and Condi Rice was on board,” the consultant said.

The initial plan, as outlined by the Israelis, called for a major bombing campaign in response to the next Hezbollah provocation, according to the Middle East expert with knowledge of U.S. and Israeli thinking. Israel believed that, by targeting Lebanon’s infrastructure, including highways, fuel depots, and even the civilian runways at the main Beirut airport, it could persuade Lebanon’s large Christian and Sunni populations to turn against Hezbollah, according to the former senior intelligence official. The airport, highways, and bridges, among other things, have been hit in the bombing campaign. The Israeli Air Force had flown almost nine thousand missions as of last week. (David Siegel, the Israeli spokesman, said that Israel had targeted only sites connected to Hezbollah; the bombing of bridges and roads was meant to prevent the transport of weapons.)

The Israeli plan, according to the former senior intelligence official, was “the mirror image of what the United States has been planning for Iran.” (The initial U.S. Air Force proposals for an air attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity, which included the option of intense bombing of civilian infrastructure targets inside Iran, have been resisted by the top leadership of the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps, according to current and former officials. They argue that the Air Force plan will not work and will inevitably lead, as in the Israeli war with Hezbollah, to the insertion of troops on the ground.)

Uzi Arad, who served for more than two decades in the Mossad, told me that to the best of his knowledge the contacts between the Israeli and U.S. governments were routine, and that, “in all my meetings and conversations with government officials, never once did I hear anyone refer to prior coördination with the United States.” He was troubled by one issue—the speed with which the Olmert government went to war. “For the life of me, I’ve never seen a decision to go to war taken so speedily,” he said. “We usually go through long analyses.”

The key military planner was Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, the I.D.F. chief of staff, who, during a career in the Israeli Air Force, worked on contingency planning for an air war with Iran. Olmert, a former mayor of Jerusalem, and Peretz, a former labor leader, could not match his experience and expertise.

In the early discussions with American officials, I was told by the Middle East expert and the government consultant, the Israelis repeatedly pointed to the war in Kosovo as an example of what Israel would try to achieve. The NATO forces commanded by U.S. Army General Wesley Clark methodically bombed and strafed not only military targets but tunnels, bridges, and roads, in Kosovo and elsewhere in Serbia, for seventy-eight days before forcing Serbian forces to withdraw from Kosovo. “Israel studied the Kosovo war as its role model,” the government consultant said. “The Israelis told Condi Rice, ‘You did it in about seventy days, but we need half of that—thirty-five days.’ ”

There are, of course, vast differences between Lebanon and Kosovo. Clark, who retired from the military in 2000 and unsuccessfully ran as a Democrat for the Presidency in 2004, took issue with the analogy: “If it’s true that the Israeli campaign is based on the American approach in Kosovo, then it missed the point. Ours was to use force to obtain a diplomatic objective—it was not about killing people.” Clark noted in a 2001 book, “Waging Modern War,” that it was the threat of a possible ground invasion as well as the bombing that forced the Serbs to end the war. He told me, “In my experience, air campaigns have to be backed, ultimately, by the will and capability to finish the job on the ground.”

Kosovo has been cited publicly by Israeli officials and journalists since the war began. On August 6th, Prime Minister Olmert, responding to European condemnation of the deaths of Lebanese civilians, said, “Where do they get the right to preach to Israel? European countries attacked Kosovo and killed ten thousand civilians. Ten thousand! And none of these countries had to suffer before that from a single rocket. I’m not saying it was wrong to intervene in Kosovo. But please: don’t preach to us about the treatment of civilians.” (Human Rights Watch estimated the number of civilians killed in the NATO bombing to be five hundred; the Yugoslav government put the number between twelve hundred and five thousand.)

Cheney’s office supported the Israeli plan, as did Elliott Abrams, a deputy national-security adviser, according to several former and current officials. (A spokesman for the N.S.C. denied that Abrams had done so.) They believed that Israel should move quickly in its air war against Hezbollah. A former intelligence officer said, “We told Israel, ‘Look, if you guys have to go, we’re behind you all the way. But we think it should be sooner rather than later—the longer you wait, the less time we have to evaluate and plan for Iran before Bush gets out of office.’ ”

Cheney’s point, the former senior intelligence official said, was “What if the Israelis execute their part of this first, and it’s really successful? It’d be great. We can learn what to do in Iran by watching what the Israelis do in Lebanon.”

The Pentagon consultant told me that intelligence about Hezbollah and Iran is being mishandled by the White House the same way intelligence had been when, in 2002 and early 2003, the Administration was making the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. “The big complaint now in the intelligence community is that all of the important stuff is being sent directly to the top—at the insistence of the White House—and not being analyzed at all, or scarcely,” he said. “It’s an awful policy and violates all of the N.S.A.’s strictures, and if you complain about it you’re out,” he said. “Cheney had a strong hand in this.”

The long-term Administration goal was to help set up a Sunni Arab coalition—including countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt—that would join the United States and Europe to pressure the ruling Shiite mullahs in Iran. “But the thought behind that plan was that Israel would defeat Hezbollah, not lose to it,” the consultant with close ties to Israel said. Some officials in Cheney’s office and at the N.S.C. had become convinced, on the basis of private talks, that those nations would moderate their public criticism of Israel and blame Hezbollah for creating the crisis that led to war. Although they did so at first, they shifted their position in the wake of public protests in their countries about the Israeli bombing. The White House was clearly disappointed when, late last month, Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, came to Washington and, at a meeting with Bush, called for the President to intervene immediately to end the war. The Washington Post reported that Washington had hoped to enlist moderate Arab states “in an effort to pressure Syria and Iran to rein in Hezbollah, but the Saudi move . . . seemed to cloud that initiative.”



The surprising strength of Hezbollah’s resistance, and its continuing ability to fire rockets into northern Israel in the face of the constant Israeli bombing, the Middle East expert told me, “is a massive setback for those in the White House who want to use force in Iran. And those who argue that the bombing will create internal dissent and revolt in Iran are also set back.”

Nonetheless, some officers serving with the Joint Chiefs of Staff remain deeply concerned that the Administration will have a far more positive assessment of the air campaign than they should, the former senior intelligence official said. “There is no way that Rumsfeld and Cheney will draw the right conclusion about this,” he said. “When the smoke clears, they’ll say it was a success, and they’ll draw reinforcement for their plan to attack Iran.”

In the White House, especially in the Vice-President’s office, many officials believe that the military campaign against Hezbollah is working and should be carried forward. At the same time, the government consultant said, some policymakers in the Administration have concluded that the cost of the bombing to Lebanese society is too high. “They are telling Israel that it’s time to wind down the attacks on infrastructure.”

Similar divisions are emerging in Israel. David Siegel, the Israeli spokesman, said that his country’s leadership believed, as of early August, that the air war had been successful, and had destroyed more than seventy per cent of Hezbollah’s medium- and long-range-missile launching capacity. “The problem is short-range missiles, without launchers, that can be shot from civilian areas and homes,” Siegel told me. “The only way to resolve this is ground operations—which is why Israel would be forced to expand ground operations if the latest round of diplomacy doesn’t work.” Last week, however, there was evidence that the Israeli government was troubled by the progress of the war. In an unusual move, Major General Moshe Kaplinsky, Halutz’s deputy, was put in charge of the operation, supplanting Major General Udi Adam. The worry in Israel is that Nasrallah might escalate the crisis by firing missiles at Tel Aviv. “There is a big debate over how much damage Israel should inflict to prevent it,” the consultant said. “If Nasrallah hits Tel Aviv, what should Israel do? Its goal is to deter more attacks by telling Nasrallah that it will destroy his country if he doesn’t stop, and to remind the Arab world that Israel can set it back twenty years. We’re no longer playing by the same rules.”

A European intelligence officer told me, “The Israelis have been caught in a psychological trap. In earlier years, they had the belief that they could solve their problems with toughness. But now, with Islamic martyrdom, things have changed, and they need different answers. How do you scare people who love martyrdom?” The problem with trying to eliminate Hezbollah, the intelligence officer said, is the group’s ties to the Shiite population in southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and Beirut’s southern suburbs, where it operates schools, hospitals, a radio station, and various charities.

A high-level American military planner told me, “We have a lot of vulnerability in the region, and we’ve talked about some of the effects of an Iranian or Hezbollah attack on the Saudi regime and on the oil infrastructure.” There is special concern inside the Pentagon, he added, about the oil-producing nations north of the Strait of Hormuz. “We have to anticipate the unintended consequences,” he told me. “Will we be able to absorb a barrel of oil at one hundred dollars? There is this almost comical thinking that you can do it all from the air, even when you’re up against an irregular enemy with a dug-in capability. You’re not going to be successful unless you have a ground presence, but the political leadership never considers the worst case. These guys only want to hear the best case.”

There is evidence that the Iranians were expecting the war against Hezbollah. Vali Nasr, an expert on Shiite Muslims and Iran, who is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and also teaches at the Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, California, said, “Every negative American move against Hezbollah was seen by Iran as part of a larger campaign against it. And Iran began to prepare for the showdown by supplying more sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah—anti-ship and anti-tank missiles—and training its fighters in their use. And now Hezbollah is testing Iran’s new weapons. Iran sees the Bush Administration as trying to marginalize its regional role, so it fomented trouble.”

Nasr, an Iranian-American who recently published a study of the Sunni-Shiite divide, entitled “The Shia Revival,” also said that the Iranian leadership believes that Washington’s ultimate political goal is to get some international force to act as a buffer—to physically separate Syria and Lebanon in an effort to isolate and disarm Hezbollah, whose main supply route is through Syria. “Military action cannot bring about the desired political result,” Nasr said. The popularity of Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a virulent critic of Israel, is greatest in his own country. If the U.S. were to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Nasr said, “you may end up turning Ahmadinejad into another Nasrallah—the rock star of the Arab street.”



Donald Rumsfeld, who is one of the Bush Administration’s most outspoken, and powerful, officials, has said very little publicly about the crisis in Lebanon. His relative quiet, compared to his aggressive visibility in the run-up to the Iraq war, has prompted a debate in Washington about where he stands on the issue.

Some current and former intelligence officials who were interviewed for this article believe that Rumsfeld disagrees with Bush and Cheney about the American role in the war between Israel and Hezbollah. The U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said that “there was a feeling that Rumsfeld was jaded in his approach to the Israeli war.” He added, “Air power and the use of a few Special Forces had worked in Afghanistan, and he tried to do it again in Iraq. It was the same idea, but it didn’t work. He thought that Hezbollah was too dug in and the Israeli attack plan would not work, and the last thing he wanted was another war on his shift that would put the American forces in Iraq in greater jeopardy.”

A Western diplomat said that he understood that Rumsfeld did not know all the intricacies of the war plan. “He is angry and worried about his troops” in Iraq, the diplomat said. Rumsfeld served in the White House during the last year of the war in Vietnam, from which American troops withdrew in 1975, “and he did not want to see something like this having an impact in Iraq.” Rumsfeld’s concern, the diplomat added, was that an expansion of the war into Iran could put the American troops in Iraq at greater risk of attacks by pro-Iranian Shiite militias.

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on August 3rd, Rumsfeld was less than enthusiastic about the war’s implications for the American troops in Iraq. Asked whether the Administration was mindful of the war’s impact on Iraq, he testified that, in his meetings with Bush and Condoleezza Rice, “there is a sensitivity to the desire to not have our country or our interests or our forces put at greater risk as a result of what’s taking place between Israel and Hezbollah. . . . There are a variety of risks that we face in that region, and it’s a difficult and delicate situation.”

The Pentagon consultant dismissed talk of a split at the top of the Administration, however, and said simply, “Rummy is on the team. He’d love to see Hezbollah degraded, but he also is a voice for less bombing and more innovative Israeli ground operations.” The former senior intelligence official similarly depicted Rumsfeld as being “delighted that Israel is our stalking horse.”

There are also questions about the status of Condoleezza Rice. Her initial support for the Israeli air war against Hezbollah has reportedly been tempered by dismay at the effects of the attacks on Lebanon. The Pentagon consultant said that in early August she began privately “agitating” inside the Administration for permission to begin direct diplomatic talks with Syria—so far, without much success. Last week, the Times reported that Rice had directed an Embassy official in Damascus to meet with the Syrian foreign minister, though the meeting apparently yielded no results. The Times also reported that Rice viewed herself as “trying to be not only a peacemaker abroad but also a mediator among contending parties” within the Administration. The article pointed to a divide between career diplomats in the State Department and “conservatives in the government,” including Cheney and Abrams, “who were pushing for strong American support for Israel.”

The Western diplomat told me his embassy believes that Abrams has emerged as a key policymaker on Iran, and on the current Hezbollah-Israeli crisis, and that Rice’s role has been relatively diminished. Rice did not want to make her most recent diplomatic trip to the Middle East, the diplomat said. “She only wanted to go if she thought there was a real chance to get a ceasefire.”

Bush’s strongest supporter in Europe continues to be British Prime Minister Tony Blair, but many in Blair’s own Foreign Office, as a former diplomat said, believe that he has “gone out on a particular limb on this”—especially by accepting Bush’s refusal to seek an immediate and total ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. “Blair stands alone on this,” the former diplomat said. “He knows he’s a lame duck who’s on the way out, but he buys it”—the Bush policy. “He drinks the White House Kool-Aid as much as anybody in Washington.” The crisis will really start at the end of August, the diplomat added, “when the Iranians”—under a United Nations deadline to stop uranium enrichment—“will say no.”

Even those who continue to support Israel’s war against Hezbollah agree that it is failing to achieve one of its main goals—to rally the Lebanese against Hezbollah. “Strategic bombing has been a failed military concept for ninety years, and yet air forces all over the world keep on doing it,” John Arquilla, a defense analyst at the Naval Postgraduate School, told me. Arquilla has been campaigning for more than a decade, with growing success, to change the way America fights terrorism. “The warfare of today is not mass on mass,” he said. “You have to hunt like a network to defeat a network. Israel focussed on bombing against Hezbollah, and, when that did not work, it became more aggressive on the ground. The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result.”

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9533
August 14, 2006
Israel, Defeated
Round one: Lebanon, 1 – Israel, 0
by Justin Raimondo
We hear much about "the cycle of violence" in the Middle East, with liberals and conservatives wailing that it needs to be "broken," but never do they say who started this "cycle," or whose brazen coercion and outright viciousness keeps it going. Yet even as the Israelis were approving UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which demands a cease-fire in Israel's war of aggression against Lebanon, the IDF was launching a huge offensive, and within minutes of the Israeli cabinet vote, the bombs were falling on Beirut. Right up until the last moment – 7 a.m., Monday morning – they were killing as many Lebanese as they could. And people wonder why Arabs teach their children to hate the Israelis. The feeling, rest assured, is mutual.

News of the Lebanese denouement is being covered as one would report a soccer match, with the gist of the story being "Who won?" Both sides claim "victory." This is typical of the region, where chest-beating bravado long ago overshadowed efforts to reach a peaceful settlement. Alright, then, so who "won"? The answer, at least as far as the first round, is Hezbollah, and, standing behind them, the government of Lebanon.

Take a look at Resolution 1701: it is quite a lengthy document, which goes well beyond the call for a cease-fire and lays the groundwork for a comprehensive solution to the current crisis in the Middle East – one in which Israel gains not an inch. If implemented – and that, of course, is the key – it endorses the seven-point program of the Lebanese government, first put forward at the international conference of July 26. This means a mutual exchange of prisoners – not only the two Israeli soldiers, but the many Lebanese still being held by the Israelis – and the return of the disputed Shebaa Farms enclave to Lebanon. Resolution 1701 also harkens back to the 1989 Taif Agreement, brokered by the Arab League, that put the West's imprimatur on the Syrian "occupation," ending the Lebanese civil war.

When 1701 endorses the efforts of the Lebanese government "to extend its authority over its territory, through its own legitimate armed forces, such that there will be no weapons without the consent of the Government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the Government of Lebanon," consider that Hezbollah's political arm has two ministers in this government.

The Lebanese army, furthermore, is urged to take control of southern Lebanon: and, in tandem with this, Hezbollah is to be "disarmed." But who, exactly, is in this army? Lebanon's military recruiters will have a field day, as the ranks of the armed forces swell with Hezbollah fighters. The resolution orders the Israelis out of south Lebanon, and invites Hezbollah back in.

Remember, Hezbollah is not some foreign force, or even an Iranian "proxy," as the Israelis (and George W. Bush) aver: it is a Lebanese institution, by far the best organized political force in the country – and one that now has the overwhelming support of the populace. The Israelis have not only lost militarily – in the sense that Hezbollah fought the IDF to a draw – they has also lost politically, within Lebanon, where they have alienated their former allies by bombing Christian neighborhoods. As the Washington Post reports:

"Israel's ferocious bombing has rallied many more Lebanese around Hezbollah, regardless of politics or religion, said Gen. Antoine Lahd, who led a now defunct militia that helped Israeli troops police the occupation zone before they withdrew six years ago.

"Beirut's leading newspaper, An-Nahar, has long been critical of Hezbollah – especially its harassing rocket attacks on Israel before the war began – but it urged all Lebanese to stand behind Nasrallah's group to achieve victory against the Jewish state."

The events surrounding Israel's second invasion of Lebanon underscore the utter isolation of the U.S. and Israel in the face of universal opposition: we are getting a taste of what it would be like if the Americans went along with Tel Aviv's strategy of a U.S.-Israeli alliance against the world. As the divergence between American and Israeli interests widened, the former blinked – and reined in the latter. But for how long?

That is the question we face as the cease-fire takes effect, and expectations are low. Condoleezza Rice anticipated this on Sunday, when she said there would no doubt be "skirmishes" but hoped that the major fighting would end. We can see, however, that it takes very little for a "skirmish" to turn into an all-out war: this, after all, is what precipitated the present conflict to begin with – a border skirmish between the IDF and Hezbollah, which Israel used as a pretext to put into operation its long-standing plan to take out Hezbollah.

The plan backfired, and badly, not only militarily but also politically. To begin with, it undermined support for Olmert's government within Israel. As the war went on, support for the Kadima-led coalition declined significantly, as did Olmert's personal popularity. This precipitated the Israeli decision to accept 1701.

The invasion also dealt a blow to the Israel lobby's efforts to retain control of American policy in the Middle East at a time when that stranglehold is being challenged as never before. Though subjected to a sharp attack by neoconservative guru Richard Perle for suggesting negotiations with Tehran over the Iranian nuclear program, the American secretary of state now looms all the larger in the Washington firmament, after having successfully chaperoned 1701 to its debut. This is, in effect, her debut – and, so far at least, she is the shining queen of the ball. Whether it all ends as did Carrie's night at the prom, in the famous American horror movie of the same name, remains to be seen; for the moment, at least, Secretary Rice is riding high.

That means the neocons are still bleeding and reeling from the wounds inflicted on their power and prestige by the near-meltdown of the American occupation in Iraq. The balance of power in Washington is shifting, as the reality of what professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt call "the Lobby" reveals itself. What was chiefly notable, during this little episode, was the laughable crudity of the Lobby's propaganda. As Ken Silverstein acerbically remarked:

"With nearly one thousand people killed in Lebanon, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has outdone itself – spinning press releases with a mastery of the form that could bring a tear to the eye of even the most hardened and cynical flack.

"Exhibit one is a July 27 memo entitled 'Beirut Largely Unscathed as Israel Targets Hezbollah Strongholds,' in which AIPAC suggested that IDF forces were using state-of-the-art technology to wage a surgical bombing campaign that spared civilians. Despite large-scale destruction in Beirut and beyond, AIPAC cheerily noted that 'an overwhelming majority of the city remains untouched' and lauded Israel for dropping 'leaflets and taking other measures to urge civilians to leave the area.'"

Who are you going to believe, the Lobby asked, us or your lying eyes? As propagandists, not even the Soviets were this bad.

The American public watched, aghast, as the Israelis heedlessly slaughtered Lebanese civilians and leveled the country's infrastructure, and, for the most part, they didn't like what they saw. The polls show decidedly mixed results, but what it comes down to is this: Americans are about evenly split when it comes to their stance toward Israel's actions in the Middle East. About half want us to side neither with the Israelis nor the Arabs, and a plurality disapprove of the way Bush is handling the situation, which, as we all know, is to give unconditional support to Israeli aggression. An ABC/Washington Post poll shows a plurality in favor of the proposition that Israel and Hezbollah are equally to blame for the outbreak of hostilities.

This is a defeat for Israel on every level: militarily, politically, and diplomatically. It is also a stunning setback for the War Party, which is already falling back on the argument that its platform, far from being discredited, was never acted on in the first place. As Jim Lobe points out, they are directing their fire at the Israelis for not killing enough Lebanese, and, now, for signing on to the cease-fire.

They may be down, but they are not out – not by a long shot. The cease-fire is fragile, and as we have seen, the Israelis are adept at provoking minor incidents and then blowing them out of proportion to carry out their preexisting agenda. However, in the developing regional conflict pitting Israel and the U.S. against Iran and Syria, we have to award round one to the latter. And for that, Tel Aviv and Washington have no one to blame but themselves.

As usual, Seymour Hersh has the inside dope, and he depicts Israel's failed blitz as a dress rehearsal for the main event: an American confrontation with Iran. Once again, as in the run-up to American's war with Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney and his office were among the chief instigators. Hersh reports:

"Cheney's point, the former senior intelligence official said, was 'What if the Israelis execute their part of this first, and it's really successful? It'd be great. We can learn what to do in Iran by watching what the Israelis do in Lebanon.'"

If this dress rehearsal is any indication of how the show will be received once it hits the big time, then remember: this administration has been duly warned. As have the Democrats, who tried to outflank the GOP by being more royalist than the king on the question of unconditional support for Israeli aggression. Let those famed "antiwar" candidates the Democratic Party is fielding for Congress this summer come out against U.S. war plans for Iran – then, and only then, can we afford to breathe a sigh of relief.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1219037.ece

Robert Fisk: As the 6am ceasefire takes effect... the real war begins
Published: 14 August 2006

The real war in Lebanon begins today. The world may believe - and Israel may believe - that the UN ceasefire due to come into effect at 6am today will mark the beginning of the end of the latest dirty war in Lebanon after up to 1,000 Lebanese civilians and more than 30 Israeli civilians have been killed. But the reality is quite different and will suffer no such self-delusion: the Israeli army, reeling under the Hizbollah's onslaught of the past 24 hours, is now facing the harshest guerrilla war in its history. And it is a war they may well lose.

In all, at least 39 - possibly 43 - Israeli soldiers have been killed in the past day as Hizbollah guerrillas, still launching missiles into Israel itself, have fought back against Israel's massive land invasion into Lebanon.

Israeli military authorities talked of "cleaning" and "mopping up" operations by their soldiers south of the Litani river but, to the Lebanese, it seems as if it is the Hizbollah that have been doing the "mopping up". By last night, the Israelis had not even been able to reach the dead crew of a helicopter - shot down on Saturday night - which crashed into a Lebanese valley.

Officially, Israel has now accepted the UN ceasefire that calls for an end to all Israeli offensive military operations and Hizbollah attacks, and the Hizbollah have stated that they will abide by the ceasefire - providing no Israeli troops remain inside Lebanon. But 10,000 Israeli soldiers - the Israelis even suggest 30,000, although no one in Beirut takes that seriously - have now entered the country and every one of them is a Hizbollah target.

From this morning, Hizbollah's operations will be directed solely against the invasion force. And the Israelis cannot afford to lose 40 men a day. Unable to shoot down the Israeli F-16 aircraft that have laid waste to much of Lebanon, the Hizbollah have, for years, prayed and longed and waited for the moment when they could attack the Israeli army on the ground.

Now they are set to put their long-planned campaign into operation. Thousands of their members remain alive and armed in the ruined hill villages of southern Lebanon for just this moment and, only hours after their leader, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, warned Israel on Saturday that his men were waiting for them on the banks of the Litani river, the Hizbollah sprang their trap, killing more than 20 Israeli soldiers in less than three hours.

Israel itself, according to reports from Washington and New York, had long planned its current campaign against Lebanon - provoked by Hizbollah's crossing of the Israeli frontier, its killing of three soldiers and seizure of two others on 12 July - but the Israelis appear to have taken no account of the guerrilla army's most obvious operational plan: that if they could endure days of air attacks, they would eventually force Israel's army to re-enter Lebanon on the ground and fight them on equal terms.

Hizbollah's laser-guided missiles - Iranian-made, just as most Israeli arms are US-made - appear to have caused havoc among Israeli troops on Saturday, and their downing of an Israeli helicopter was without precedent in their long war against Israel.

In theory, aid convoys will be able to move south today to the thousands of Lebanese Shia trapped in their villages but no one knows whether the Hizbollah will wait for several days - they, like the Israelis, are physically tired - to allow that help to reach the crushed