This "incident" seems conveniently timed and I don't trust the Lebanese for one minute.
The damaged buildings and injured people were shown on TV back in 1982 and the United States ended up sending in Marines between Arafat and the Israelis.
We all know what happened next.
Is the United States pressuring Israel to limit its "use of force" in Lebanon? Bush and Rice have used "restraint" so many times. Its bad enough with clowns like Peretz in charge in Israel, but has the United States tied Israel's hands here.
This situation is a no-win scenario that only makes sense if the United States intends to deal with Iran next year.
We don't do "wars" in election years.
Hezbollah is running interference for Iran to divert attention while they build the bombs. Keeping the ball focused on the target means tamping this problem down but its sad to see Israel being restrained into a no-win scenario.
You are so right. This is a smokescreen.
I'm not so sure we're doing the restraining. Many people had reservations about just how serious Olmert was about this effort from the beginning. Certainly the kind of "warfare" they've been used to in the South didn't prepare them for this, and you have to wonder if the Israelis even considered that they were entering an "all or nothing" situation. You can just as easily postulate that Olmert's government fears high Israeli casualties more than they fear Hezbollah.
It's certainly been a tough slough with the entire MSM and the left in both Israel and US aiding and encouraging the enemy, but what seems to be a dogged determination not to commit more of their resources to driving Hezbollah out of the south does not look promising.