A New Thread fot the Current Israel/Palestine/Lebanon mess

reading it again, actually, it's pretty clear to me that they thought they had an exclusive, and suddenly they see all these OTHER reporters behind them.. dicks!!!!

If you google this phrase, "these ambulances aren’t responding to any new bombings", you'll find that a bunch of rightwing fuckos have written about this at length. Cooper reflected on his day with Hezbollah in a follow-up segment on air. I didn't see the segment and I normally don't pay much attention to media watchdog blogs, but the quotes are extensive (and the airing of the segment should be easily verifiable) so I'm inclined to believe this.

Or, in brief: come on, do you *really* think that a group like Hezbollah doesn't stage shit for American media outlets? Does anything you know about Hezbollah suggest that they drive around like Batman, always on call, ready to protect the injured and heal the sick?

Sure, they were probably pissed about the non-exclusive, but it's not hard to tell you're being manipulated when pictures, names, and places you're allowed to visit are all being tightly controlled by the people who are supposed to be, you know, telling you stuff and answering your questions (which is not to say that conventional governments don't do this stuff sometimes).

because of course no other governments, certainly not the us or canada or israel, ever stage anything.

hahaha

According to the stuff I read, Cooper did do a story on exactly that*. If you're asking "why don't they do stories about this stuff more often", then it's probably because journalists don't like to advertise the fact that they were manipulated and may have reported bullshit disguised as facts.

*from this, I'm figuring that they did some fact-checking before airing the follow-up, because it makes you look 10X stupider if you air false news, and then follow it up by "exposing" that false news with unverifiable speculation. Although who's gonna take the time to investigate *that* in detail and call CNN on their bullshit *twice*? (as you noted, that's what the internet is for)

1) they left some mortars in them and realized at the last second. woops!
2) they were driving AWAY from injured people, because they are MEAN and HATE FREEDOM.
3) quittin' time

xpost oh alright. so what did the story say? if hezbollah has ambulances and even semi-skilled people inside them, why are they stopping their runs?

that's a pretty big assumption given it's cnn. or of any news organization in general. of course fact-checking should happen, but doesn't always, when you've got deadlines. and cnn has made shit up before.

Then one by one, they've been told to turn on their sirens and zoom off so that all the photographers here can get shots of ambulances rushing off to treat civilians. That's the story that Hezbollah wants people to know about.

These ambulances aren't responding to any new bombings. The sirens are strictly for effect.

let's assume that he knows this to be true. that anderson cooper, his cameraman and his producer have figured out something that all the other newsguys at this exact same location, filming the same stuff, didn't "figure out." now. i don't know if you've ever seen a television news crew operate, but this happens ALL THE TIME with TOTALLY INNOCUOUS STORIES. i'll tell you why. it feels very fake the first few times you see it in action. let's say you're interviewing the director of a children's health charity. you set up a camera outside the building. you shoot her walking through the front door several times. she comes back out each time and walks through again. then you shoot her chatting with the receptionist. "talk about pencils or something," you say. then, in her office, you get a wide shot of her at her desk. "get a stack of papers together and and pen, and look through them," you say. this is just how it works. with any news crew anywhere. an equally - and i'll say more likely - interpretation of anderson's "scoop" about the ambulances is that hezbollah was doing the news a FAVOR. are they really going to sit around waiting for those ambulances to respond to something? that image on the screen is going to be the same regardless: an ambulance zooming off. presumably the camera crews that were shooting that needed that image in order to tell their story. we can disagree about whether this is ethical but all newsrooms EVERYWHERE have already agreed, a long time ago, that if the story itself is true, and the words coming out of people's mouths are uncoached, and the images are things that would be happening anyway, the specific shots can be just as rehearsed as you like. now, if these news crews were actually bamboozled somehow by the ambulances, and seized on them and were like "news flash! ambulances have just pulled away from our incredibly stage-managed tour with hezbollah" than yeah they're incredibly stupid and hezbollah is going to have a cake-walk in the american media.

Was just talking to a plugged-in U.S. observer who is pretty depressed about where this thing could be headed diplomatically. He worries that the UN meeting next week could be something of a fiasco. If Condi comes to New York for a ministerial meeting of the Security Council, she could be hammered even harder than she was in Rome and the storyline about the isolation of the U.S. could get even more traction. He sees a basic disconnect between the U.S. diplomatic holding pattern (which won't last forever and may soon give way) and the Israeli military campaign (which seems to lack a sense of every-minute-counts urgency). This raises the possibility of the diplomatic window closing before Israel really gets the job done—because Israel thinks it has more time than it really does. The Arabs, Russians, and Chinese will be hammering away at us next week, and while it probably won't get to the point where there's a resolution we have to veto, it might get very hard to keep a call for an immediate cease-fire out of it. He says everything that is coming of Lebanon suggests that Hezbollah is gaining political support rather than losing it, and if this thing ends without Israel having landed a very grave military blow against Hezbollah, the terror group might gain from it after all. It's doubtful that Condi is going to get much for the Lebanese during her trip over the week, since they are in no position to do anything but call for an immediate ceasefire. The Brits still seem to be holding firm, but there's some wobble in Foreign Secretary Beckett and her top staff. For what it's worth...

The Israeli-Hezbollah war has become routinized. Israeli aircraft fly daily air strikes in Lebanon. Hezbollah rockets strike at Israel. Ground combat takes place among small units just north of the Israeli-Lebanese border. It is a situation that appears, on the surface, to have settled into a sustainable routine. Neither side is clearly making military progress; neither side is under military compulsion to end hostilities; neither side appears to be changing the military equation. Such a war can continue for a long time from a military standpoint. The political dimension determines what happens next. That can range from indefinite continuation of the current pattern of conflict, to an attempt by one side to change the pattern in some decisive way, or the suspension of conflict by means of a political resolution.

Let's begin by considering the war from Hezbollah's point of view. To this point, the war has gone better than the militants could possibly have hoped. First, although they have undoubtedly been hurt by the Israeli air campaign, Hezbollah's operational infrastructure appears intact. The militants continue to fire rockets into Israel, although one gets the sense that the rate of fire is decreasing somewhat. Most important, their forces in south Lebanon appear to have offered significant resistance to elite Israeli units.

In other words, Hezbollah has done what no other Arab fighting force has done. It has not cracked under Israeli air-land attack. This has set in motion an important political process in the Islamic world. At the beginning of the war, the response of Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia was to condemn Hezbollah for starting a war that could only bring ruin to Lebanon. By extension, the Saudis were attacking Iran for once again generating a conflict in which Tehran took no risks and in which the force it was backing could not prevail.

Hezbollah's ability to resist Israel has shifted that political dynamic. Hezbollah is achieving its strategic political goal. Simply by resisting and not collapsing, it is establishing itself as the most effective fighting force yet to engage the Israelis. Expectations of disaster confounded, the Islamic opponents of Hezbollah -- as well as secular opponents -- are now trapped in Hezbollah's apparent success. They must close ranks and support them.

Hezbollah can't do better than it is doing now. It is not going to invade Israel and at some point, Israeli air force attacks and the sheer passage of time will undermine its ability to resist. At the very least, the militants are not likely in the course of this fighting to be in a better position than they are today. It is, therefore, in their interest that a cease-fire be declared as soon as possible. If the war ended today, Israel would have achieved nothing definitive in its attacks. Rockets would still be available for attacks on Israel. Israel would not have room to maneuver in south Lebanon. A peacekeeping force would stand between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Hezbollah as equals. It follows that Hezbollah should want an unconditional cease-fire right now.

Turn to Israel's view of the war. Certainly, none of its strategic objectives have been achieved. Hezbollah has not been shattered. Rocket attacks continue. The Israelis have not routed Hezbollah infantry in their probing attacks but have chosen to retreat after suffering casualties. Most important, they have suffered a political defeat. Hezbollah's credibility and standing have been enhanced. More than two weeks into this war, Israel has not achieved its political objectives and is further from its political objectives than when it began.

Most important -- and this is both a military and political evolution -- Israel is in the process of degrading its single most important asset, which is the idee fixe in the Middle East that the IDF is an irresistible force. This perception has shaped military and political thinking in and about the region since 1956, when Israel defeated the Egyptian army in the Sinai, and was reinforced in 1967. There has been an assumption that any Arab force that engaged the IDF on the battlefield would be defeated quickly and devastatingly. If that perception is lost, then Israel has in fact suffered a significant military defeat that will have resounding political consequences.

Obviously, nothing we have said here is not thoroughly known to the Israelis. Therefore, the question that needs to be answered is: What exactly they are doing? In particular, this question must be answered: Given that the Israelis have not achieved their goals using the air campaign, why are they choosing to continue it? It is interesting to note that this is not only our question. It is a question that we have had expressed to us by Israelis and Arabs, including those in Lebanon. The perception is that Israel could defeat Hezbollah if it chooses. That view persists. The question is why they have not yet done so. Some potential explanations:

1.The air campaign is actually proceeding as expected. This is on an accelerating curve in which little progress will be apparent until a threshold is reached, at which point Hezbollah's infrastructure will suddenly crumble.

2. Israel has had a massive intelligence failure, deeper than the one that happened in 1973. Israeli intelligence underestimated the maturity of Hezbollah and the robustness of its command and control. The Israelis failed to understand the militants' rocketry capabilities or the sophistication of their defensive positions in south Lebanon. They made assumptions about Hezbollah's capabilities that were simply wrong.

3. Israel knew of Hezbollah's capabilities. They understood that a broad ground attack on Hezbollah would involve massive Israeli casualties. They saw the rocket attacks as less costly than a major ground offensive and therefore went to an air campaign to inflict as much damage possible without incurring unacceptable losses.

4. Israel could defeat Hezbollah but is concerned that the costs of an occupation would outweigh the strategic benefits. Therefore, they are not taking ground that they would have to hold in counterinsurgency operations.

5. Israel has tried the air campaign, hoping that it would work. However, Israel has a plan B standing by that would involve a conventional assault along the lines we have discussed before.

6. Israel intends to broaden the war beyond Hezbollah, toward its patrons in Syria and Iran, and is biding its time in doing this.

All of these are plausible explanations. In figuring out which is most plausible, we must begin with a core premise: From the Israeli point of view the current situation, which leaves Hezbollah in a military draw and a political victory, is unacceptable. There are many reasons for this but for Israel, retaining the IDF's reputation for invincibility is an absolute requirement. Ending the war with the perception that a subnational organization can fight the IDF to a draw is not acceptable, regardless of the level of exertion required.

Seen through this lens, which we are confident shows Israeli thinking, the air campaign can be allowed to continue by itself only if battle damage assessment (BDA) shows that it will shortly prove fruitful. We do not have access to Israeli BDA, and we have heard that there is serious debate among Israel's military leaders over the status of the war, with the army questioning air force estimates. However, in our view, there is nothing that is likely to happen in the next few days that will change Hezbollah's operational capabilities.

Whether this was the result of an intelligence failure or of concern about Hezbollah's capabilities, at this point, the Israelis have little choice but to accept the reality and the casualties. They have mobilized a substantial force, clearly in anticipation that it might be needed for offensive operations. Whether Israel is drawn into counterinsurgency or not, retaining the perception of military supremacy supersedes all other considerations. We expect that a Plan B ground offensive was always present as an option, but whether it was hardwired into the plan or not is no longer an issue. Unless the Israelis plan to come out of the war with Hezbollah more powerful than ever, and if the air campaign doesn't suddenly work, they must go in on the ground.

Israel does not have the reach for Iran. The Israelis could launch nuclear weapons, but that simply isn't an option politically. As for Syria, if Israel toppled al Assad, his successor regime would be worse unless Israel would want to occupy Syria. The United States cannot pacify Iraq with 135,000 troops; Israel doesn't have that many to devote to an occupation. Plus, the IDF has never captured a major enemy city in its history, declining to go into Beirut. If attritional warfare bothers Israel, taking Damascus is not an option. The invasion of Syria is not on the table, although selective air attacks are possible.

The widening of the war is not a serious military option. A cease-fire at this time would be politically disastrous for Israel. It must, given its options, try to inflict a decisive defeat on Hezbollah, and a cease-fire would deny Israel that opportunity. The political effect on the region would be dramatic. It may well be that the Israelis have no appetite for casualties or counterinsurgency. It may be that their view of Hezbollah is that it is more an irritant than a threat. Nevertheless, the current evolution of this conflict forces them to make some dramatic decisions.

We note that the war is routinized. That should not be taken as proof that more dramatic events are not being planned. If it turns out that Israel declines major ground operations and accepts a cease-fire, the political map of the region -- geographically and psychologically -- would change decisively and to Israel's massive disadvantage. Thus we must assume that with cease-fires approaching and no decision on the ground, Israel will shift its strategy.

While I have sympathy for Lebanese civilians, I have little truck with Lebanese ministers who call for an immediate ceasefire period, end of story, without acknowledging the truth. Which is that Israel had left Lebanon alone for years and there is a very clear reason why this conflict broke out.

I would love to see a politician anywhere brave enough to take a "turn the other cheek" strategy: evaculate civilians, impose sanctions and blockades, bankrupt the opposing government through lawsuits, etc., (Yes, I know totally unrealistic.) Somehow you have to make it perfectly clear who the "guilty" party is.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/07/30/world/30qana4_600.jpg

i'm not sure what you find intellectually "dishonest" about that, but i agree there probably isn't any point in discussing it.

They are (and have been) in a position where the only course of action "acceptable" to the world is to let Hezbollah or whoever attack them at will.

this is no one's position. no one finds that acceptable.

Israel had left Lebanon alone for years

this, too, is flatly untrue.

they will always come out of a conflict looking worse.

worse than hamas? worse than hezbollah? please. i think this is the worst, though:

Somehow you have to make it perfectly clear who the "guilty" party is.

by bombing them? assassinating their political leaders? israel has specialized in exactly this kind of "we are the judge, jury and hangman" role, more and more in the last few years - sheik yassin is just one of the more inflammatory examples. i don't think israel has benefited from this mentality.

intellectual honesty is couching your opponents' arguments in the STRONGEST possible way and then arguing against that. then you'll really know you've got a case and your opponents have a tough time arguing back because their big ammo has already been used.

At this moment there appears to be a major shift taking place in the war. Though the scope of the operation is unclear, it appears the Israelis have shifted to a new phase of the war, focusing on broader and more intense ground operations. It could be that this is the opening phase of a broader raid-in-force against Hezbollah that might go beyond southern Lebanon. We do not know this for certain, but it does warrant alerting our readers to the possibility. Various bits of evidence point in this direction.

For example, early Sunday Israeli time, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman was quoted as saying, "We have drawn our conclusions from battles in other areas, we have learned our lesson and are about to embark on another mission. There is no intention whatsoever to occupy this region or any other -- only to arrive, to act, and when we're done, to get out."

Link to map of Israel/Lebanon border for reference

There are reports of new areas involved in fighting and new Israeli units being engaged. For example, Israeli forces are now fighting in the area of Qana. This is a few miles southeast of Tyre and deep into southern Lebanon. We have heard that the Qana action consists of engineers, armor and infantry, indicating a more traditional combined arms effort. The engineers would be clearing mines, bulldozing fortifications and clearing roads damaged by Israeli airstrikes. Infantry would be clearing the area of anti-tank teams and opening the way for broader armored thrusts to destroy rear infrastructure and isolate forward Hezbollah positions. There are additional reports of engagements near and to the west of the Israeli panhandle in the Dan-Dafna-Metulla region, along with heavy artillery fire in this region. This would be the jump-off point for an attack both westward along the Litani and northward into the Bekaa Valley. There were extensive reports of a major armored buildup in this area over the past 48 hours. This would also explain the decision to disengage temporarily at Bent Jbail in preparation for the new phase of operations.

Interestingly, the report about Qana that we have says the attacking force is from the Nahal Division. According to Israeli media, the Galilee Division, which normally has full responsibility for the entire Lebanese border, has been given responsibility for the western half of the border, while Nahal Division has been made responsible for the eastern half. If all of this is true and the Qana fighting is being carried out by Nahal, then the action at Qana represents a drive westward from the northern panhandle rather than a northern drive from Galilee division. This is of great importance because it indicates that the armor massed in the panhandle is moving in a broad encirclement as per traditional IDF doctrine. Nahal has been moving rapidly during daylight hours. Ground operations involving the Golani Brigade were also reported in Taibe last night. If Nahal moved west, it would have passed through Taibe. If the division were planning on a move north to the Bekaa Valley, it will need Taibe. The town is in a critical location.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has canceled her visit to Lebanon. She is, however, going to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday night and return to the United States on Monday. If nothing important were happening, Rice would stick to her schedule. If the United States objected to what is happening, Israel would postpone until she left or she would be on the plane right now. Therefore, a logical conclusion is that whatever is happening makes her trip to Lebanon pointless or harmful but that she wants to signal that there is no strain in relations with Israel. If there is a major attack coming, Washington has signed off on it.

We are approaching nightfall in Israel. If this is indeed a major shift operationally -- and we simply cannot be certain at this point, in spite of pieces seeming to fall into place -- then we would expend rapid movements of Israeli forces through the night, and we should get a sense by morning, Israel time, of just how deep they expect to go. At this point, having made the decision to shift to larger-scale, more traditional operations, Israel will want to proceed as rapidly as possible for operational and diplomatic reasons. If the Israelis are going, they will be going rapidly.

It should also be noted that Israel attacked key roads and bridges along the Syrian-Lebanese border. This indicates that Israel is not intending to use those roads to attack Syria (otherwise they would have wanted them intact) but does want to protect its flank from any Syrian countermove. It is the least intrusive action Israel can take. They neither want to attack nor be attacked by Syria.

At this point, if this should take place, we will get a better sense of Hezbollah's broader capabilities. Its forward troops seemed to be extremely competent. Whether troops in other areas are equally capable remains to be seen. Also remaining to be seen is the effect of the Israeli air campaign on the militants' numbers, morale and coordination. If they are an effective fighting force, we would expect effective attacks against armored columns using anti-tank weapons and mines, and a slow evolution. If they are severely weakened, as some reports we are receiving from Lebanon say they are, the attack will be broader.

Remember that in our view Hezbollah does not expect to defeat Israel's main force, but wants to draw it into Lebanon to impose an Iraqi/Afghan style insurgency. Therefore, an apparent collapse of Hezbollah (as with the Taliban and Saddam Hussein's forces) does not necessarily mean defeat but rather can mean a shift to insurgency rather than conventional resistance. As the IDF statement makes clear, Israel does not intend to occupy and expose itself to such actions. It should also be remembered that both within and outside of Lebanon, Hezbollah has historically used terror techniques to impose penalties on enemies and shape the political environment. Hezbollah pioneered suicide bombing in Lebanon during the 1980s.

In conclusion, we do not have definitive intelligence that Israel has shifted to a radical new course. This could simply be another phase in a piecemeal operation. However, given Israeli practice in the past and political disputes within the Israeli government, we regard it as reasonable to alert our readers to the possibility of the beginning phases of a major, more traditional Israeli ground offensive designed to destroy Hezbollah in detail. We will know more clearly over the next 12 hours.

by bombing them? assassinating their political leaders? israel has specialized in exactly this kind of "we are the judge, jury and hangman" role, more and more in the last few years - sheik yassin is just one of the more inflammatory examples. i don't think israel has benefited from this mentality.

you took this EXACTLY the opposite of how I intended it (note phrase "turn the other cheek"). my point was that Israel has inflicted so much damage on Lebanon that it is now very difficult to defend them. Lebanon now looks (and is) the victim, and Hezbollah like the only group able to "defend" the country.

Ned, why do you keep posting stuff from those Stratfor twatmunks? They have been continuously saying that Israel is about to launch a major ground offensive any minute now since this conflict started.

My own view is that now that Israel has butchered more civilians in one go than it itself has lost in the whole conflict, I reckon they can declare victory and stop. Alternatively, I reckon that as with Qana Massacre I they will face increasingly insurmountable pressure to stop the slaughter. Either way, the result is the whole thing winding down to the status quo ante, except with Hezbollah now holding two Israeli soldiers.

Because they're about the only people talking about this thing that realize that morality has no place at the table with the functioning of realpolitik.

That said, they are obviously tea leaf readers first and foremost, and their predictions can fail.

The U.S. State Department said July 30 that Israel agreed to a 48-hour cessation of airstrikes in southern Lebanon beginning immediately. The reason given was to allow for an investigation of the Israeli airstrike in the Lebanese village of Qana. We assume this is also intended to permit humanitarian assistance and the extraction of civilians to proceed. No mention was made of a halt to ground operations, but it was said Israel reserves the right to strike to suppress rocket fire into Israel. That means that unless Hezbollah also suspends rocket operations, Israel will continue its strikes.

It also leaves open the possibility that Israeli aircraft will be permitted to come to support Israeli ground forces that come under attack. If the cease-fire does not halt ground operations and does permit airstrikes against forces attacking Israel, and if Hezbollah does not halt rocket attacks, the announcement means relatively little. If Hezbollah does halt rocket attacks and ground attacks, it will have created a 48-hour cease-fire in the air that Israel will have to deliberately break to resume the war.

The Israeli air force has been operating intensely for almost three weeks and clearly can use a 48-hour stand down. This decision, if confirmed opens the door to a cease-fire in place that would leave Hezbollah with a draw -- a victory from Hezbollah's point of view. At this point, Hezbollah has a critical decision to make that will not be known until dawn local time, as that is when Hezbollah has launched its first salvoes at Israel in the past.

This does not halt ground operations. The end of air attacks is subject to Israel's interpretation of Hezbollah's actions. It is not clear at this moment that this is as significant as it might appear. It depends partly on Hezbollah's actions and partly on Israel's intentions. Forces that we think are moving forward are exempt from this cease-fire, and may or may not have to move without air support.

We will continue to monitor and analyze the meaning of this surprising move.

OTM.

Stratfor (seemed to) make much more sense at the beginning of the fighting. That last bulletin is one big wank to avoid them saying, "Everything we've been predicating for the last week has been wrong."

Your assumption about morality in international relations is very debatable. If nothing else, the likes of AIPAC and its enemies would not shite on about whether or not Israel is wuvvly country or a bad country if the concept of good and evil in international affairs was not one which resonated with the public. You (and those Stratfor fellows) are also operating under the assumption that states know their interests and that they act in a manner calculated to maximise their realisation.

I think, though, that this kind of thing would be better discussed on a thread entitled The Timeless Wisdom Of Political Realism - classic or dud

scrolling headline in guardian.

Actually, I sorta think that proves my point even more! And I wouldn't go so far as to say that states know their interests -- rather, they assume they know, and therein the problem when, in fact, they often don't. The price being paid by the dead and injured is the ever so charming result.

Mitya, like I said, Stratfor are tea leaf readers that are not guaranteed of accuracy with every claim, so you're not getting me to disagree with you or anything. If, however, the choice is between Stratfor or something like it going "This is the likely read on the current state of affairs" and most other pieces elsewhere implicitly or explicitly saying "Let me tell you for the 415433154234513rd time why one side or the other in this situation is evil, wrong and bad," I'll opt for the former.

Now, here is Exhibit A in the July 31st edition of "Losing Touch With Reality":

France says Iran is respected, stabilizing force in Middle East

If 33 dead children doesn't stop them, then they could be exercising restraint for some time.

I'm not trying to pick a fight, Ned -- just expressing an opinion. I welcome the Stratfor pieces for the same reason you're posting them. If I haven't said "thank you" already, I should've.

Was just talking to an Israeli official. I asked him whether the temporary bombing pause would really be just temporary. He responded, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating." He went on to explain that the purpose of the pause was to get by the moment when the Qana tragedy risked creating irresistable pressure toward an immediate, conditionless ceasefire that would be a victory for Hezbollah. The Israelis believe that the tactic is working and the conversation will soon return to hammering out the conditions that will make a ceasefire sustainable. On the Lebanese political situation, he said the Israelis believe there is a natural rally-around-Hezbollah effect that will fade over time. Finally, on the military campaign he says perhaps those disappointed in how it has been going had "unrealistic expectations." Hezbollah is "extremely well dug in and there is no quick fix." It's "a guerilla war, a war of attrition, and there's going to be no knock-out blow." He says the fighting is all about creating the best possible military conditions on the ground in advance of ceasefire with the right conditions. For what it's worth...

His follow-up is interesting as a bit of mindset guesswork.

I understand why the Israelis agreed to the bombing pause, but it seems to undermine their case: either the bombing is militarily necessary, in which case it should continue even if there are tragic mistakes, or it's not, in which case they shouldn't have been doing it in the first place. I'm guessing it's going to hard for them to start up again—will they stop again as soon as another bomb goes astray?

Also, if the hawkish critics who believe that Israeli should have invaded southern Lebanon in force on the ground are correct that nothing short of that would deliver a debilitating blow to Hezbollah, it is now presumably too late for that to happen. So the least effective part of the Israeli campaign—the bombing—will have foreclosed the option of a more effective campaign on the ground.

Perhaps the situation can still be saved, but it's hard to get around this calculation: Hezbollah is going to survive, and there's no way it is going to disarm voluntarily. A meaningful international force will enter southern Lebanon only if Hezbollah is disarmed, and since it won't be, there won't be a meaningful international force. That means one of the linchpins of the Israeli post-war strategy is not going to come about. So Hezbollah wins.

At this point, around the Middle East, the Bush administration seems to have two options: admit defeat, or continue to raise the stakes.

Elsewhere the likes of Podhoretz and Charen are amusing me with their attempts to square, as noted, morality with realpolitik. In this case, their conclusion appears to be that too many people on 'our' side don't want to kill others. How sad.

but logic has no place at the table with the functioning of realpolitik

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Urging President Bush to turn all U.S. efforts toward "ending this madness," a leading Republican senator Monday broke with the Bush administration and called for an immediate cease-fire in the Mideast.

"The sickening slaughter on both sides must end and it must end now," Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel said. "President Bush must call for an immediate cease-fire. This madness must stop."

The Bush administration has refused to call for Israel to halt its attacks on southern Lebanon, joining Israel in insisting that Hezbollah fighters must be pushed back from the Israeli-Lebanese border.

President Bush Monday in a speech in Miami Beach, Florida, reiterated his call for a cease-fire in the Mideast only if it brought a "long-lasting peace" that addressed Iran and Syria's support for Hezbollah, the Islamic militia that Israel is targeting. (Full story)

Hagel said that refusal threatens to isolate the United States and Israel and harm chances of achieving a long-term peace in the region.

"How do we realistically believe that a continuation of the systematic destruction of an American friend -- the country and people of Lebanon -- is going to enhance America's image and give us the trust and credibility to lead a lasting and sustained peace effort in the Middle East?" asked Hagel, the No. 2 Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Calls for 'a statesman'

He called on Bush to name "a statesman of global stature" as his personal envoy to the region. And he urged the administration to open direct talks with Hezbollah's backers, Iran and Syria, both of which Washington also accuses of meddling in Iraq.

"Our relationship with Israel is special and historic," he said. "But it need not and cannot be at the expense of our Arab and Muslim relationships. That is an irresponsible and dangerous false choice."

Bush was headed back to Washington after a fund-raising trip to Florida, and the White House had no immediate reaction to Hagel's comments.

Like his frequent ally, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Hagel is a possible GOP presidential candidate in 2008 and has been critical of the administration's handling of Iraq. But few members of Congress have broken ranks with the president over his handling of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

Calls for an end to the 20-day conflict have increased since Israel's bombing Sunday of the Lebanese town of Qana, which left at least 54 civilians dead. Hagel said the Israeli campaign was "tearing Lebanon apart," and the resulting civilian casualties and economic damage were weakening the country and bolstering support for Hezbollah, which the U.S. State Department considers a terrorist organization.

Hagel urged the administration to revive the Beirut Declaration of 2002, authored by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, under which Arab countries would have recognized Israel's right to exist. Hagel said that declaration was "a starting point" toward a regional settlement, but the United States "squandered" it.

'Bogged down' in Iraq?

Meanwhile, the decorated Vietnam veteran said the United States "is bogged down in Iraq," limiting U.S. diplomatic and military options. Last week's announcement that more than 3,000 more American troops were needed to reinforce Baghdad amid rising sectarian violence was "a dramatic setback," he said.

He said the 3-year-old war is wearing badly on the U.S. military, and that Iraq's fledgling democracy needs to take over more of its security responsibilities from American troops.

"This is not about setting a timeline," Hagel said. "This is about understanding the implications of the forces of reality."

This is a surprisingly nuanced and well-spoken point.