What Is It Good For?

The downward-spiraling war situation in the Middle East is probably the biggest news story right now, but I have very little to add to it in terms of blogging. The situation is too complex and I lack the expertise on Mideast politics to fully dissect this conflict. I certainly hope some sort of miracle occurs and things settle down rather than escalate, but it's hard to picture that right now. I also understand that, in the deeper end of the blogosphere, much of the 'debate' tends to get bogged down in terms of choosing sides (I have found Talking Points Memo, Americablog, and others to be good escape from that). I do believe that while, yes, this war was a long time in the making, it was also avoidable. Had we not been focused on invading the wrong countries, maybe we would not have missed that, but I don't know.

With that said, it is frightening to be seeing the enthusiasm with which many on the far-right (the Malkin wing) are approaching this situation. Many of these people have long wanted a full-out war in that region and have only critiqued President Bush to the extent that he has held back (!) in his foreign policy/military action. They've wanted since 9/11 to believe we're in the midst of World War III (I'm looking at you, Newt) and they want the U.S. to be front and center in it. I linked to two good takes on this (David Ignatius' Behind the Crisis, A Push Toward War and Digby's War Cry) last Saturday. At the forefront of this push for more war and U.S. involvement is, not surprisingly, king neocon William Kristol who said on Fox News yesterday that this was "a great opportunity" to "begin resuming the offensive against the terrorist groups". This is madness and hope most of our congressional leaders will choose common sense over political expediency in responding to what may come. This isn't to say that we should shove our heads in the sand and ignore this situation by any means. This does effect us in some ways and we can affect it as well as an outside mediator with other countries. But the last people whose advice we should following are the same ones who led this country into Iraq and have been agitating for more war ever since.

As Juan Williams retorted to Kristol, "you just want war, war, war, and you want us in more war."

Finally, here's the latest news from the Associated Press-

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Monday for the deployment of international forces to stop Hezbollah from bombing Israel, an issue that has overshadowed the summit of world leaders.

President Bush, not realizing his remarks were being picked up by a microphone, bluntly expressed his frustration with the actions of Hezbollah, a militant Islamic group believed backed by Iran and Syria that is engaged in escalating warfare with Israel.

"See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this (expletive) and it's over," Bush told Blair in a discussion before the Group of Eight leaders began their lunch...

..."The blunt reality is that this violence is not going to stop unless we create the conditions for the cessation of violence," Blair said after talks with Annan on the margins of the G-8 summit....

Sounds like President Bush was the one being blunt.

[Related reading:
-AP: G-8 leaders struggle to prevent wider war
-Talking Points Memo: I guess conservatives have given up on the whole "9/11 changed everything" gambit...
-TPM Cafe: Whither America?]