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Fauquier Progressives :: For a Progressive Fauquier
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TALKING POINTS FROM AMERICAN PROGRESS ACTION
Middle East Crisis Day 31 - August 11, 2006 Diplomacy inched forward yesterday in the conflict in the Middle East as France and the United States agreed on the main points of a U.N. resolution to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. While ambassadors hope to vote on the resolution today, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton stated that "we're not there yet." The human, economic, and political costs of the conflict continue to mount and the violence drags on with no end in sight. "The cost and toll in human suffering is enormous, and it's undermined the capital that the U.S. has in Lebanon and other places," said Sami Haddad, Lebanon's minister of trade and economy. At least 1,018 Lebanese and 122 Israelis have been killed in the fighting, with Wednesday marking Israel's highest one-day death toll in the conflict. President Bush may be enjoying his vacation, but meanwhile in the Middle East a conflict rages that threatens to turn into "something still worse in the region and beyond."
One month into the attacks there is still no plan of action. After more than a month of talks, France and the United States yesterday "reached a compromise that envisages a halt to the fighting, a phased withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, and the deployment of the Lebanese Army supported by UN peacekeepers reinforced with French troops." But as former U.N. Ambassador Nancy Soderberg notes, "These are goals so ambitious that no peacekeeping force, not even NATO, could achieve them." Former deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage echoed this sentiment: "I find a lot of chatter about this peacekeeping force, but I find very few people putting their hands in the air saying they've got troops who are willing to do it." Lebanon has promised to contribute 15,000 troops, but these troops won't be enough because the Lebanese military is currently heavily infiltrated by Hezbollah. A stronger Unifil force can't do the job alone either.
Neocons are getting in the way of robust diplomacy. While the Bush administration's recent movement on the U.N. resolution is encouraging, for too long it was disengaged from the Middle East. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently admitted that the administration did not do enough to bolster Lebanon's President Fouad Siniora: "Perhaps it has needed more energy than it has been given." A State Department official agreed, "We did nothing, we did absolutely nothing" to strengthen the Lebanese government after the Syrian withdrawal.” Neoconservatives—many of whom are pushing Israel to attack Syria and expand the fighting—continue to influence the Bush administration. According to one senior administration official, Rice has been forced to stake out positions "sufficiently unlike the usual State Department" approach in order to satisfy Vice President Cheney.
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