The Silence of the Blogs

Andrew Sullivan notes the stunning silence on left wing blogs over the war in Lebanon and speculates about the reasons for it.

For my part, I suspect that the southpaw bloggers are reluctant to talk about the war for a couple of reasons. First, posting about the war would unleash a flood of commentary from their readers, many of whom are virulently anti-semitic. The lefties who run the blogs realize that triggering the hateful rhetoric likely to spew from this reptilian element of their readership would be a PR disaster. Second, there's no really good argument against what Israel is doing and the bloggers would make fools of themselves if they tried to criticize it. But, third, they can't take a position supporting Israel because that would put them in bed with George Bush and that's a circumstance too repugnant to contemplate. Not only would they be alienating a sizable chunk of their base - the antisemites and Bush haters - by having to share the mattress with Bush but they'd also be ineluctably led by the logic of their position to generally agree with his views on the larger war on terror.

The Israeli/Hezbollah war is thus a philosophical minefield for the left, and for the most part they're seeing the wisdom of just ignoring it. It's unprincipled, to be sure, but then we are talking here about the secular left.

Bint Jubayl

Bill Roggio discusses the battle of Bint Jubayl at CounterTerrorism Blog:

As the smoke clears from the fighting in the Lebanese border town of Bint Jubayl, Hezbollah's military capabilities become clearer. Today, 8 Israeli soldiers from the Golani Brigade's 51st Battalion were killed and 22 wounded during a "well-planned Hezbollah ambush on the outskirts" outside of Bint Jubayl. This follows the 4 killed and 18 wounded during Sunday's engagement in the town.

Hezbollah was reported to have suffered 150 killed as of this morning, and another 40 killed in today's action after fighting "gun battles at point-blank range." An unnamed American military officer reports several Hezbollah operatives, whose primary purpose is logistical support, have been captured and are currently being interrogated by Israeli intelligence.

The Hezbollah bunker in Bint Jubayl was taken nearly intact. Hezbollah attempted to destroy the equipment in the bunker, but was not successful in destroying it all, according to an intelligence source. Abu Jaafar, the Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, may have killed himself rather than being captured. The Israeli troops seized Hezbollah computers, documents and monitoring devices used to observe the Israeli border, in addition to the "electronic surveillance equipment, weapons and communication devices made in Iran" which was reported yesterday. The bunker served as the equivalent of a Hezbollah headquarters and command and control center for the southern border.

The Israelis targeted the town of Bint Jubayl with the hope of obtaining further intelligence on Hezbollah's organization and capabilites, as well as the location of their two captured soldiers. The documents and computer seized by the IDF may outline Hezbollah's command and organizational structure in southern Lebanon, although this is unknown at this time. Israeli intelligence is currently analyzing the data.

The Israelis have confirmed that Hezbollah is fighting like a professional military. Their units are fighting at the company level at the least (Unit size of approximately 100 men), and perhaps in larger formations. Intelligence also confirms there is specialization within the Hezbollah units, including trained infantry, mortar teams, missile squads, and logistical personal. Iran has trained and organized Hezbollah's army into something far more deadly than a militia force. Hezbollah's core 'active' army is estimated at 3,000 - 5,000, with as many as 50,000 part time militia and support personnel that can be called upon to fight (20,000 is the average estimate).

Intelligence sources also have confirmed that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps have indeed been killed during the fighting in Bint Jubayl.

The Lebanese coastal city of Tyre (also referred to as Sour) has "has steadily fallen more and more under Hezbollah's influence since the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, and rocket launchers in the city are hitting the city of Haifa and the northern Israeli towns. Israeli air strikes have been focusing on the city, but a steady barrage of about 100 missiles continue to fall in Israeli territory each day.

The Israeli government is signaling their plan to combat Hezbollah is to establish a 1-2 kilometer security buffer along the border and accept international peace keepers without explicitly requiring Hezbollah to disarm in accordance to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559. This would give Hezbollah a monumental political and propaganda victory, while allowing Hezbollah's army the time and space it needs to rearm, train and improve their tactics for the next battle with the Israeli Defense Force.

This is why Israelis are saying that the war will continue for several more weeks. Either Hezbollah does not survive or ultimately Israel will not survive.

There's more analysis at DebkaFile.

Neo-Cons

Front Page Mag has an interview by Jamie Glazov with Douglas Murray, author of Neoconservatism: Why We Need It. Murray has a number of interesting things to say about neoconservatism, among them is the distinction between liberals, traditional conservatives, and neo-cons.

The latter, according to Murray, see the world as it is and feel a duty to make it what it should be. Traditional conservatives (sometimes called Paleo-cons) see the world as it is and want to isolate themselves from it. Liberals, unfortunately, lack the capacity to see the world as it is.

Murray also ventures to identify some of those who fall into the neo-conservative mold:

Of the sustained neocons, none is a better example than Tony Blair. His axiom before the Iraq war on toppling dictators 'When you can, you should' seems to me a perfect neoconservative expression. But, that said, he is not remotely a neocon on domestic matters (which I go into at some length in my book) - not even on the domestic war on terror. It's purely a foreign policy thing with him.

There are of course a number of writers who I would say are great examples of neoconservative thinking. From very different directions, Christopher Hitchens and Charles Krauthammer spring to mind. But again it's worth pointing out that whenever you get more than one neoconservative in a room they're as likely to disagree as agree with each other. It's not a doctrine or fraternity - simply a way of looking at the world which, in my opinion, is particularly relevant to the world in which we live.

In answer to a question about why he thinks we need neoconservatism (from the title of his book) he replies:

Because the West is getting lost. Not just the Western way of life - which is increasingly becoming little more than a 'lifestyle choice'. But lost in the sense that it is forgetting what it believes in and therefore why it should even believe in itself. A combination of historical ignorance and moral posturing has led to what Ratzinger called the 'dictatorship of relativism'. In this situation moral clarity - which is one of the things neoconservatism provides - is desperately lacking. And I think this situation is dangerous. Dangerous because into this vacuum any of the worst creeds can stalk. Relativism's descent into nihilism is not the end of the problem. It is the beginning of it.

Regarding the war in Lebanon he speaks with refreshing good sense:

We must emphasise that parity does not exist when there is a war between a democratic state and a terror organisation. This is something that large swathes of the media - and the UN - simply cannot understand. Such a conflict is not a 50/50 event. And the scales do not tip against Israel because Israel has suffered fewer casualties to date. You do not decide who is right by affecting a body-count. Germany lost more troops than Great Britain in the last World War, but it didn't make Germany right. Would those who talk so idiotically of disproportionate response against Hezbollah be happier if more Katyushas were making direct hits on Israeli citizens?

Any decent person must emphasise that this is a conflict between free people and terrorists - an army that does everything it can to limit civilian casualties and an organisation whose aim is to maximise civilian casualties. Between two such sides no equivalence can be made.

The battle will - and must - be over only when Hezbollah's weaponry of terror is entirely destroyed. Neither the US nor any other ally of Israel should demand a ceasefire at any date before the time of Israel's choosing. If they do demand it, Israel should ignore it. A ceasefire which returns us to the status-quo ante would be a temporary ceasefire which would make the sufferings of recent weeks and months not just pointless, but perpetual.

The conflict currently going on is a local version of the war in which we are all engaged. Trace back just one step, in Iraq, Lebanon, London or New York, and you get the same story, and the same ring-leaders. Israel's war is our war, and we should be proud that at least one of our allies is successfully fighting this war for us as well as for themselves. Victory for Israel against Hezbollah will be a victory for all free peoples, not least the people of Lebanon.

Please read the whole interview at the link. It's worth the time.

Neutral Peace-Keepers

Maybe this photo helps explain the tragic accidental bombing of a U.N. observation post today by the Israeli air force:

That's a Hezbollah flag keeping the U.N. flag company. Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the photo.

Murderers' Race is a PC No-No

It turns out that in our nation's capital it is forbidden to mention the race of criminals who are being sought by the police, no matter how relevant the race of the suspects might be. Tongue-Tied offers us the details of an example:

A police commander was issuing a description of some wanted murderers:

"I would think that at 2 a.m. on the streets of Georgetown, a group of three people, one of whom is 15-years-old, one of whom is a bald chunky fat guy, are going to stand out. They were black. This is not a racial thing to say that black people are unusual in Georgetown. This is a fact of life."

In Georgetown, the number of white people outnumber the number of black people 23 to 1."

The police commander has been "reassigned" because he divulged the race of the wanted men.

And he should be reassigned. He's obviously too insensitive to realize that certain facts should be left unstated since otherwise people might come to believe the racist stereotype that most violent criminals in Washington are black.

Higher Ed

This is the sort of erudition and scholarly thinking that $30,000 - $40,000 a year buys you at many of our elite universities:

More than 60 state lawmakers are urging the University of Wisconsin-Madison to fire an instructor who has argued that the U.S. government orchestrated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Of course, an instructor should be free to offer his students nonsense if the university wishes him to do so, and many instructors evidently do just that. The question is: why would parents think that this is the sort of education they should want for their child?

War and Diplomacy in Lebanon

The Jerusalem Post provides a summary of the recent fighting in Lebanon. The Israelis seem to be moving methodically and carefully to crush Hezbollah with the minimum harm possible being inflicted upon civilians.

Meanwhile Bob Gorrell has the diplomatic Kubuki dance figured out:

Surprises For and From Nasrallah

MEMRI has a transcript of an interview with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in which he makes two admissions which are particularly interesting. He says first that Lebanon knew in advance that Hezbbollah was going to kidnap Israeli soldiers and did nothing to discourage or prevent it. This means that Lebanon must share part of the blame for the destruction which has befallen it.

Hassan Nasrallah: I told them on more than one occasion that we are taking the issue of the prisoners seriously, and that abducting Israeli soldiers is the only way to resolve it. Of course, I said this in a low-key tone. I did not declare in the dialogue: 'In July I will abduct Israeli soldiers.'

Interviewer: Did you inform them that you were about to abduct Israeli soldiers?

Hassan Nasrallah: I told them that we must resolve the issue of the prisoners, and that the only way to resolve it is by abducting Israeli soldiers.

Interviewer: Did you say this clearly?

Hassan Nasrallah: Yes, and nobody said to me: 'No, you are not allowed to abduct Israeli soldiers.' Even if they had told me not to... I'm not defending myself here. I said that we would abduct Israeli soldiers, in meetings with some of the main political leaders in the country. I don't want to mention names now, but when the time comes to settle accounts, I will. They asked: 'If this happens, will the issue of the prisoners be over and done with?' I said that it was logical that it would. And I'm telling you, our estimation was not mistaken. I'm not exaggerating. Anywhere in the world - show me a country, show me an army, show me a war, in which two soldiers, or even civilian hostages, were abducted, and a war was waged against a country - and all for two soldiers. This has never happened throughout history, and even Israel has never done such a thing.

Nasrallah indicates genuine surprise at the ferocity of the Israeli reprisal. He did not expect them to go to war over a kidnapped soldier, nor did he expect that the Arab world would remain tacitly indifferent to their response. He seems to feel sold out by the Arabs:

Hassan Nasrallah: Once we used to ask the international community to denounce the hangman and to have mercy on the victim. Then we got to the point where we said we would accept it if they denounce the hangman and the victim alike. This has become what we could expect from them. If a resolution denounces both the hangman and the victim - fine. As for the Arab regimes - all we expect from them is to be neutral. And if they do not want to be neutral - brother, let them treat Israel and us equally. We would even accept it if they treat the hangman and the victim equally. But for them to participate in spilling the blood of the victim, and to provide cover for the crimes of the hangman - I tell you that we did not expect this. This was indeed a surprise.

He added this:

Once the war is over, in what way will it affect the Iranian nuclear dossier? What effect will it have on it? On the contrary, if this is in any way connected to the Iranian nuclear dossier, the war being waged against Lebanon does not serve its interest. The Americans and the Israelis have always taken into account that if a confrontation breaks out with Iran, Hizbullah might intervene in Iran's favor. So striking Hizbullah now would weaken, rather than strengthen, Iran on the nuclear issue.

Those who insist the Israelis stand down before their task is finished in Lebanon should take Nasrallah's words to heart. A weakened Hezbollah diminishes Iran's standing in the world and weakens their bargaining position over their nuclear program. Such an admission should give the world incentive to encourage the Israelis to complete the job. It's just one more way in which the cause of peace will be served by the elimination of Hezbollah.

WFB on GWB

CBS gets a scoop: A conservative icon does not consider President Bush to be much of a conservative. This, of course, is not much of a scoop:

President Bush ran for office as a "compassionate conservative." And he continues to nurture his conservative base - even issuing his first veto this week against embryonic stem cell research. But lately his foreign policy has come under fire from some conservatives - including the father of modern conservatism, William F. Buckley.

"I think Mr. Bush faces a singular problem best defined, I think, as the absence of effective conservative ideology - with the result that he ended up being very extravagant in domestic spending, extremely tolerant of excesses by Congress," Buckley says. "And in respect of foreign policy, incapable of bringing together such forces as apparently were necessary to conclude the Iraq challenge."

Of course, Mr. Buckley is simply reiterating what conservatives have been saying about George Bush for at least four years now. He's not a pure ideological conservative, and the only people who think he is, apparently, are liberals. George Bush is a political centrist, a man who forty years ago would have probably been in the mainstream of the Democratic Party. This makes the left's visceral hatred for him all the more astonishing.

Some will say that the left vilifies him because of Iraq, but the Iraq project is something for which the left should be grateful. Not just because Bush liberated 25 million people from oppression, a fact they often elide, but also because, as we've been tirelessly reminded, getting preoccupied in Iraq has made adventures in Syria, Iran and North Korea far more difficult and far less likely.

Parenthetically, it is one of the hypocrisies of the left's rhetoric that they castigate Bush for tying us up in Iraq to the point where we can't, in their telling of it, react with strength to the nuclear threat in Iran, when, in fact, the prospect of military action against Iran would send them into paroxysms of outrage.

Pushing the West Into a Corner

Victor Davis Hanson writes that the Islamists are pushing the West into a corner, a strategy which may prove very dangerous for the Muslims. Here are some key excerpts:

For years, the Arab world clamored for the Israel "problem" to be solved. Then peace and security would at last supposedly reshape the Middle East. The Western nations understood the "problem" as being Israeli retention of lands it had captured in Sinai, the West Bank, Gaza, Syria and Lebanon after defeating a series of Arab forces bent on destroying the Jewish state.

But after the Israeli departure from Sinai, Gaza and Lebanon, and billions of dollars in American aid to Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians, there is still not much progress toward peace. Past Israeli magnanimity was seen as weakness. Now Israel's reasoned diplomacy has earned it another round of kidnapping, ransom and rocket attacks.

Finally, the world is accepting that the Middle East problem was never about so-called occupied land -- but only about the existence of Israel itself. Hezbollah and Hamas, and those in their midst who tolerate them (or vote for them), didn't so much want Israel out of Lebanon and Gaza as pushed into the Mediterranean altogether. And since there will be no second Holocaust, the Israelis may well soon transform a perennial terrorist war that they can't easily win into a conventional aerial one against a terrorist-sponsoring Syria that they can.

Yet for all their threats, what the Islamists -- from Hezbollah in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley to the Iranian government in Tehran to the jihadists in Iraq's Sunni Triangle -- don't understand is that they are slowly pushing tired Westerners into a corner. If diplomacy, or aid, or support for democracy, or multiculturalism, or withdrawal from contested lands, does not satisfy radical Islamists, what would?

The answer, of course, is nothing will satisfy them except the total elimination of Israel. Now that Europe is facing its own "Muslim problem" more Euro-appeasers are beginning to realize that concessions will not sate the ravenous Islamic appetite. Despite calls in the media for a cease-fire realists recognize that a cease-fire will not be an end to hostilities nor will it presage such an end. It would only rescue the extremists so that they can resume the fight once they've recovered their strength.

She'd "Love To Kill" the President

Betty Williams won the Nobel Peace Prize thirty years ago for her work to end the violence in Northern Ireland. If they gave prizes for despicable speeches she might qualify for one of those, too.

Campaigning on the rights of young people at the Earth Dialogues forum, being held in Brisbane, Ms Williams spoke passionately about the deaths of innocent children during wartime, particularly in the Middle East, and lambasted Mr Bush.

"I have a very hard time with this word 'non-violence', because I don't believe that I am non-violent," said Ms Williams, 64.

"Right now, I would love to kill George Bush." Her young audience at the Brisbane City Hall clapped and cheered.

"I don't know how I ever got a Nobel Peace Prize, because when I see children die the anger in me is just beyond belief. It's our duty as human beings, whatever age we are, to become the protectors of human life."

She might also receive an award for high achievement in perpetrating logical atrocities. "It's our duty," she avers, "to become protectors of human life." She states this immediately after telling cheering school children that she would love to murder the president of the United States. What a marvelously inane human being this lady is.

Not If He Were President

"If I was president, this wouldn't have happened."
John Kerry on the Israeli/Hezbollah conflict.

We have no doubt that that's true. A President Kerry would doubtless have done everything he could to prevent Israel from defending itself so that there would be no war. Israel would just be "hunkered down", in Richard Cohen's infelicitous phrase, hoping that Hezbollah would be nice and return their kidnapped soldier and stop murdering Israeli civilians. How else could Senator Kerry be so sure that a conflict such as the one we're currently witnessing would not have broken out on his watch unless he knows he would have blocked Israel's attempt to defend itself?

Actually, were Mr. Kerry president, the problem would be perhaps even more serious. A President Kerry would have retreated from Iraq in January of 2005 right after his inauguration. If we were not in Iraq, however, Syria, Iran, and maybe a couple of other Middle Eastern Arab states, emboldened by our lack of will, would probably right now be amassing troops to confront the Israeli Defense Force because they would know that Kerry would do nothing to stop them except call for negotiations.

In other words, if the pompous Mr. Kerry were president, Israel would right now be forced to choose between risking annihilation and going nuclear to defend itself. That's where Kerry's strategy of appeasement and surrender in Iraq would take us. It's where appeasement and surrender always take those who adopt it as a policy.

A Little Humility Please

In an interview about his book Darwinian Conservatism, Larry Arnhart makes this statement:

In my book, I explain why the arguments of the intelligent design folks are weak. They assume unreasonable standards of proof in dismissing the evidence for Darwin's theory, and they don't offer any positive theory of their own as an alternative.

Note that he doesn't say that he explains "...why, in his opinion, the arguments of the ID folks are weak." Nosiree. No sissified qualifications or equivocations from this man. Arnhart is a political science professor, after all, and if such an exalted expert proclaims the ID arguments to be weak, then that settles that.

Professor Arnhart is evidently convinced that a professorship in political science is close enough to real science to give him sufficient standing to pontificate on controversies in the philosophy of science as though he had some authority in the field. This is almost as presumptuous as Ann Coulter's pronouncements on the short-comings of the theory of evolution in her book Godless.

To be sure, there's nothing wrong with a non-specialist venturing opinions on matters outside their field of expertise - at Viewpoint we do it all the time - but it would be wise of non-specialists to exercise a little intellectual humility and avoid presenting their opinions as if they commanded the assent of the rest of us.

The Coming Assault on Iran

James Lewis at The American Thinker makes a prediction: If the Iranians don't back off their nuclear program there will be military strikes against Tehran before George Bush leaves office. The Israelis may start it, but the Americans will finish it. And no Arab country will shed a tear.

He argues that all the indications are that the Israelis are currently preparing for just such an assault:

Even as the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are battling to knock down Hezbollah, Iran's terror proxy in Lebanon, the Washington Times reports that the Israeli Air Force is now equpped to take on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad even while he is busy channeling the Twelfth Imam in Tehran. The timing of this report may not be a coincidence.

According to Rowan Scarborough, Israel has purchased 25 $84 million F-15I (I for Israel) Ra'am, aspecial version of the U.S. F-15E long-range interdiction bomber. It also is buying 102 of another long-range tactical jet, the $45 million F-16I Sufa. About 60 have been delivered.

The Jewish state also is buying 500 U.S. BLU-109 "bunker buster" bombs that could penetrate the concrete protection around some of Iran's underground facilities, such as the uranium enrichment site at Natanz. The final piece of the enterprise is a fleet of B-707 air-to-air refuelers that could nurse strike aircraft as they made the 900-mile-plus trip inside Iran, dropped their bombs and returned to Israel.

More than 85 long-range bombers and tactical jets are enough to strike fixed nuclear targets in Iran. The Iranians can't very wel move their nuclear plant at Bushehr or their enrichment cascade at Natanz. They do have another estimated 30 nuclear-related sites that may survive a short-term air campaign.

So much for IAF capability. What about military objectives? The Israeli mindset is essentially defensive. Israel has a formidable military because for more than half a century it has had formidable enemies. It would be absurd in Israeli eyes to attack anyone who did not pose a threat.

But the Mullahs are repeating Saddam Hussein's model of building a nuclear industry while talking genocide. That adds the greatest possible incentive to actually use Israel's long-range bombers. Add capabiity to incentive, and you can get action.

It's clear that Iran cannot be permitted to develop nuclear capabilities. It's not that they could put one atop an ICBM and launch it at the U.S. but rather that they'd almost certainly supply them to terrorists who would smuggle them into Israel, Europe or the U.S. An attack on Iran would have terrible consequences for world stability, but nuclear weapons in the hands of those who preach genocide of the Jews and the destruction of Western civilization would be calamitous. There simply are no easy options if Iran persists in its quest to develop the ability to accomplish these aims.

Read the rest of Lewis' piece at the link.

More on Stem Cells

Reuters has an article which suggests that the stem cell debate has created a fissure in the pro-life camp:

President George W. Bush may have cited his moral stance in vetoing a bill that would have expanded embryonic stem-cell research on Wednesday but the issue transcends traditional divisions over abortion rights. Strongly conservative Republicans who oppose abortion such as Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch have backed broader federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research for years, and more conservatives have come on board recently, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee.

The embryos at issue come from fertility clinics, where eggs and sperm are united in lab dishes. But many more are made than can ever be implanted in mothers' wombs, and the leftovers are discarded.

The bill vetoed by Bush would have allowed federal taxpayer money to be used to do research on those embryos donated by the parents. It is not illegal to use private funds to do so, although some conservatives, such as Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, would also seek to ban this research.

The stem cells are taken from a ball of cells known as a blastocyst, which develops five to seven days after conception. These embryonic stem cells are pluripotent -- meaning they can differentiate into all the types of cells that make up an animal, including a human being, but do not form placenta and cannot become a fetus.

Bush, an opponent of abortion, used his first veto as president to block the bill on Wednesday, saying destroying embryos for medical research "crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect."

Many people who disapprove of abortion say they do not disapprove of experimenting on these embryos, which would otherwise be discarded. "It's very difficult to justify abandoning 7,000 to 20,000 in vitro eggs as medical waste," Hatch told reporters recently.

"The president is simply wrong -- it is clear we can expand current policy in an ethical and moral manner that unleashes the potential of embryonic stem-cell research," Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, executive director of The Republican Main Street partnership, which styles itself as a centrist Republican movement.

And supporters of embryonic stem-cell research say they are the ones who can claim the moral high ground. "It is immoral for our families, neighbors and friends to be held hostage to chronic diseases when their treatments are within our scientific grasp," June Walker, president of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, said in a statement.

Harry Moore of the Center for Stem Cell Biology at the University of Sheffield in Britain called Bush's stance inconsistent. "Most embryos produced by a normally fertile women will fail before implantation and not go on to a pregnancy. To call it 'murder' to use embryos donated for research is just emotional blackmail," Moore said in a statement.

I agree that there is no necessary connection between one's stance on abortion and one's position on embryonic stem cell research and have explained why here. There may be good reasons not to use embryos as a source of stem cells - other sources may be superior and less socially problematic, for example - and certainly, embryos should not be produced for the purpose of securing their stem cells. But the argument that it is immoral to do research on embryos that are destined to be discarded in any event, and should not be publically funded, does not work.

As I argued at the linked post it may be that the embryos should never have been produced, but that is an entirely separate question from the issue of what, given that the embryos are available and will ultimately be destroyed in any case, may morally be done with them.

Iraq's Unheralded Benefits

The benefits of the Iraq invasion keep piling up in the Middle East. Josh Manchester explains the latest instance of this at Tech Central Station where he argues that the invasion of Iraq has had a tectonic impact on the policies and politics in the Arab world and is paying dividends in the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. He concludes his case by saying that:

The 'big bang,' as invading Iraq has sometimes been called, was meant to reorder the nature of politics in the region. This has been accomplished in a fundamental way. The idea of dividing an enemy force into its constituent parts and then dealing with it piecemeal is at least as old as Caesar's actions in Gaul. It applies no less to US strategy in the Middle East. Every faction there has been made to reconsider its relationship with every other. Rather than there being a monolithic clash of civilizations, thus far the US is dealing with the area in pieces -- in whatever way it sees fit to do so -- whether making it tacitly clear to Syria that what happened in Iraq could more easily happen to it, or threatening Iran on behalf of the region and world, or seeking cooperation with the Saudis in hunting down al Qaeda.

Were Saddam still in power, the Arab world would not feel nearly as threatened by Hezbollah, the Frankenstein's monster of Iran's creation. Instead, they would have sided with the Syrian foreign minister's strong support for Hezbollah. Saddam himself might even have offered cash rewards to anyone attempting martyrdom against the Jews. Instead, ... the leading Arab League states, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, call Hezbollah's actions "inappropriate and irresponsible." This lessens the urgency of calls from the international community, whether the G8, UN, or EU, for a ceasefire. That lessened urgency creates something very precious indeed: a moment in time and space wherein Israel has the most fleeting of opportunities for decisive action against Hezbollah, an avowed foe, a terrorist organization, and a constant threat to the security of its populace.

Israel now has the chance to destroy Hezbollah. Only time can tell what Israel will do with the opportunity it possesses. Opportunities forsaken are opportunities lost forever, as MacArthur was sometimes rumored to say. But let there be no mistake: this moment would not have been possible without the invasion of Iraq, and the destruction of Hezbollah is very much in the interest of the United States and that of any other nation that abhors terrorism.

Very little is said about this in the MSM because media types can only see what's directly in front of them, and in their immediate field of vision they see only strife and conflict. To them it all seems like chaos. The idea that Israel would be in a far more precarious position today and that Hamas and Hezbollah would be far stronger had the Iraq war never happened does not impinge upon their mental radar. Even if it did occur to them they wouldn't dare mention it lest they make our nincompoop commander in chief look strategically prescient.

Lieberman Falling

It's not looking good for the Democrats in the Connecticut senate race. The August 8th primary contest between incumbent senator Joe Lieberman versus wealthy challenger Ned Lamont seems to be tilting in favor of Lamont. This is what the self-destructive left-wing base wants, of course, because they loathe Lieberman for his support of the war and love Lamont who is a genuine cut-and-runner.

Lieberman held a 55-40 lead over Lamont in June but is now trailing 51-47.

So why is this bad news for the Dems? Because Lieberman has indicated that if he loses the primary he'll run in November as an independent and will probably win by picking up a lot of Republican votes. This will embarrass the party and those in it who support Lamont in November. If elected as an independent Lieberman promises to caucus with the Democrats, but he'll certainly feel that he owes them little allegiance after their tepid support for him this summer.

Ground War

Ed Morrissey considers the prospects for Israel's anticipated ground assault against Hezbollah. He looks at the likely reactions of Syria and other players in the Middle East and concludes that the long term benefits might be worth it but the short term risks are high.

Read his analysis here. See also Strategy Page's report here.

Pat's Short Memory

Pat Buchanan is on the side of the angels, and I have a lot of respect for him, but he has a surprisingly short memory. In the course of arguing against going to war with Iran he says that:

None of this is written in defense of Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran. But none of them has attacked our country....

Let's refresh his memory for him with a list of Hezbollah's attacks against the U.S. over the last twenty years or so:

• Car bombing of U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut killing 241 U.S. servicemen (1983)
• Car bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut killing 63 people, including 17 Americans (1983)
• Bombing outside U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut killing 24 (1984)
• Hijacking of TWA Flight 847 killing one U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem (1985)
• Abduction, torture and death of CIA Station Chief William Buckley in Lebanon (1985)
• Bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia killing 19 U.S. servicemen (1996)

See Michelle Malkin for more on Hezbollah as a threat to the U.S.

How many Americans does Hezbollah have to kill before Pat is convinced that if we are not at war with Hezbollah they are certainly at war with us?

Israeli Tactics

Strategy Page offers interesting analysis of Israeli tactics in the current war.

Meanwhile, this article at YNet describes the extensive bunker system Hezbollah has constructed along the Israeli border and why it must be destroyed.

Evidently, thousands of Israeli troops have been tasked with the job of finding and securing these underground structures and most of the Israeli military casualties have been suffered in this mission.

Thanks for the tip to Belmont Club.