I recommend you read the article.
"Yet not even this is enough to satisfy a devoted friend of Israel like Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy. In “Cross Hairs” (New York Sun, August 1, 2006), Gaffney looks at the diplomatic maneuvering of the Bush administration in buying the Israelis more time and translates it into an insistence that they “negotiate with and try to appease [Islamofascist totalitarians] when they are in the Islamofascists’ cross hairs.” But this interpretation simply ignores the steadfastness of Bush and his people in refusing, against enormous pressure, to endorse a cease-fire except under the very conditions that the Israelis themselves proposed. Nor does Gaffney seem to notice that Bush was tacitly encouraging the Israelis to use the additional time he was buying them to be more, not less, aggressive in the fight against Hizballah. On this point, Shmuel Rosner, the Washington correspondent of the liberal Israeli daily Ha’aretz, asks and answers the right question: ..."
"Robert Kagan—a neoconservative who has not given up on Bush—puts this well in describing the negotiations as “giving futility its chance.” Kagan also entertains the possibility that the negotiations are not merely a ploy on Bush’s part, and that his “ideal outcome really would be a diplomatic solution in which Iran voluntarily and verifiably abandoned its [nuclear] program.” However that may be, once having played out the diplomatic string, Bush will be in a strong political position to say, along with Senator John McCain, that the only thing worse than bombing Iran would be allowing Iran to build a nuclear bomb—and not just to endorse that assessment but to act on it."
Don't blame Bush for Israel's failure. He was giving them all the time they needed until he realized that Israel's leadership didn't have what it takes.
Let me preface my remarks by stating that I am 110% pro-Israel.
Now, Israel, being a sovereign nation, did not have to agree to or accept the cease fire. Are you implying that Israel is at the beck and call of the U.S.?
You missed the finer point, here. The states voted. The terrorist army was not there. As a state department spokesman said today of Nasrallah, "He's hiding in a hole or basement somewhere." If you don't understand that the war on terrorism has gained its worldwide support as a fight to protect the state system against its terrorist enemies, then you really don't know what is going on.
Maybe I'm not the only one at FR who's view of Condi has turned less favorable. She was just too fast to jump on the "We Need a Ceasefire Now" train. The UN "solution" was exactly what Condi said she wanted in the first week. Not what I was hearing at the time (or thought I was hearing) from Bush.
