A Man, a plan, Iran - Lebanon!

Seymour Hirsch has an excellent piece in the New Yorker about the Bush administration's reluctance to rein in Israel and prevent hundreds if not thousands of civilian casualties. In it he confirms that the Israelis had planned a major offensive against Hezbollah months ago and were simply waiting for an opportune provocation to strike. For their part, Cheney and co. were eager to witness Israeli success because they hoped to use it as a blueprint for a future invasion of Iran, should one become necessary. Given that Iran is supposed to give up its nuclear enrichment program by the end of this month, there was no time to lose if such lessons were to be learned. But the debatable military success (and clear political failure) of the Israeli attacks leaves the outcome of such an operation against Iran ambiguous at best. Perhaps the only gain, and that one somewhat dubious, was the monthlong distraction from the heaviest casualties yet witnessed in our own military-political debacle, the Iraq war.