Is the Bush Doctrine Dead?

COMMENTARY ^ | SEPTEMBER | Norman Podhoretz

[elhombrelibre]

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.

[Sabramerican]

Hezbollah rearming would now violate a UN resolution

Hezbollah was already violating a UN resolution and they will violate many more, including tonight by the rocket attack. No one cares.

[elhombrelibre]

You know a lot of people care. This is just the end of the beginning; it's not the end.

[Torie]

Time will tell how this plays out. Sure, there are more pawns to be played. But things overall are pretty quiet, for the moment.

[Sabramerican]

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?

[Sabramerican]

Quiet- if you don't count the rockets- and the kidnapped Israelis tucked in for the night no doubt.

[Torie]

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.

[elhombrelibre]

I have no faith in him (Koffi), but I do in the Israeli people and in our own. This pause allows for a lot of things to catch up too.

[jla]

Lets look at this time and place... The US is looking to get a UN resolution regarding Iran's nuclear ambitions... If Israel refused to obey a UN resolution, the US would be forced to impose sanctions on Israel or render any such resolutions empty of purpose and meaning and they become an empty and useless gesture towards Iran.

So you agree that this, the U.N. vote, was a prudent move?

[Torie]

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.

[Chena]

BTTT Our President has not given up, and neither will I. The Bush Doctrine is in motion as we speak.

[Sabramerican]

Uh?

[DoughtyOne]

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?

[elhombrelibre]

Agreed. He's very stubborn, and he'll stand by his convictions.

[Sabramerican]

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.

[elhombrelibre]

No, I think we will play a role in disarming Hizbollah by destroying Assad. That's my opinion. And I think the IDF will finish Hizbollah, and they and the rest of the world will have gone past the point of proving how futile the effort to use diplomacy was. Being obstinate, Hizbollah will push even the French to see that force is the only way out of the problem Iran and Syria released.

[elhombrelibre]

This a trap for Syria as I see it.

[FreeReign]

Hezbollah was already violating a UN resolution and they will violate many more, including tonight by the rocket attack. No one cares.

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.

[DoughtyOne]

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.

[DoughtyOne]

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.