Posted on 08/14/2006 6:46:49 PM PDT by elhombrelibre
In recent months, we have been bombarded with reports of the death of the Bush Doctrine. Of course, there have been many such reports since the doctrine was first promulgated at the start of what I persist in calling World War IV (the cold war being World War III). Almost all of them were written by the realists and liberal internationalists within the old foreign-policy establishment, and they all turned out to resemble the reports of Mark Twains deathwhich, he famously said, had been greatly exaggerated. Nothing daunted by this, the critics and enemies of Bush are now at it yet again. This time, however, their ranks have been swollen by a number of traditional conservatives who were never comfortable with the doctrine bearing his name and who have now moved from discomfort to outright opposition.
But what is genuinely new, and more surprising, is the entry into this picture of a significant number of my fellow neoconservatives. As the Bush Doctrines greatest enthusiasts, they would be much happier if they could go on pointing to signs of life, but so disillusioned have they become that a British journalist can say that, to them, the words Rice and Bush have all but become the Beltway equivalent of barnyard expletives. No wonder that they have now taken to composing obituary notices of their own.
Are we then to conclude that the latest reports of the death of the Bush Doctrine are not greatly, if indeed at all, exaggerated, and that it has at long last really been put to rest?
So misrepresented has the Bush Doctrine been that the only way to begin answering that question is to remind ourselves of what it actually says (and does not say); and the best way to do that...
(Excerpt) Read more at commentarymagazine.com ...
Without US aid, Israel would be hard pressed to continue. However, with Iranian aid, Hizbollah will fail. The resolution is binding and mandates that aid end, but it doesn't end our aid. So again, Hizbollah and Iran lost the cover they previously had. Now, the US and Israel must work in tandem to stop Syria, Iran, and its proxies, Hizbollah.
Hezbollah was already violating a UN resolution and they will violate many more, including tonight by the rocket attack. No one cares.
You know a lot of people care. This is just the end of the beginning; it's not the end.
Time will tell how this plays out. Sure, there are more pawns to be played. But things overall are pretty quiet, for the moment.
Well then I expect at least Kofi Annan to condemn tonight's rocket attack which to me meant that the cease fire was broken and certainly tommorow's headline is "Hezbollah breaks Cease Fire Agreement".
Ya think?
Quiet- if you don't count the rockets- and the kidnapped Israelis tucked in for the night no doubt.
Ya, the failure to release the Israeli troops bothers me. The kidnapped ones were not the ones who fired the first shot. Their capture in my view was a crime.
So you agree that this, the U.N. vote, was a prudent move?
Relatively quiet. And the rockets were fired into South Lebanon, rather than Israel, which is progress. Nobody in authority seems much in a wad over this one, including the Israelis.
BTTT Our President has not given up, and neither will I. The Bush Doctrine is in motion as we speak.
Uh?
Who pray tell is going to disarm Hezbollah? The mandate doesn't call for it the last I heard. The Lebanese army isn't going to do it either.
This is just one more instance of the U.N. sticking it's long nose and blind eyes into a situation for which it hasn't clue one.
Do you actually see the French disarming Hezbollah? Really?
Agreed. He's very stubborn, and he'll stand by his convictions.
The ones in authority- on our side- are the problem. That's what we have been discussing all day.
Maybe there is a different meaning to cease fire then to cease fire. Or maybe this was a cease fire with a special Katusha rocket fire on Israeli forces exception.
This a trap for Syria as I see it.
Of course Hezbollah will violate UN resolutions, they are a terrorist organization.
The question is will the democratically Siniora and the LAF once and for all move into Southern Lebanon and take control away from Hezbollah.
I have no sympathy for Assad, but if I recall correctly Syria and Russia may have a mutual defense treaty. Russia has been Syria's bud for a long long time.
Will Putin push that. I don't honestly know. I'd sure be holding talks with him if I were Bush.
Syria seems to be acting as if it has eyes for the Golan Heights. If so, this could come to a head in upcoming months.
This is one of the very scarey outcomes of allowing Hezbollah to hold onto their training camps in the Bekaa Valley and many missiles still within reach of Israel. This could get very ugly rather quickly.
And it may play out that you are right. I'm not quite that good a tea leaves. I don't think Syria is going to be a pushover, because of it's possible entanglements above it's pay scale.
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