Seymour Hersh: U.S. Helped Plan Israel's War Against Lebanon/Hezbollah

If true, this probably wouldn't come as a surprise to many. From the UK's Guardian paper-

The US government was closely involved in planning the Israeli campaign in Lebanon, even before Hizbullah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross border raids in July. American and Israeli officials met in the spring, discussing plans on how to tackle Hizbullah, according to a report published yesterday.
The veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh writes in the current issue of the New Yorker magazine that Israeli government officials travelled to the US in May to share plans for attacking Hizbullah...

...The Israeli action, current and former government officials told Hersh, chimed with the Bush administration's desire to reduce the threat of possible Hizbullah retaliation against Israel should the US launch a military strike against Iran.

"A successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign ... could ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American pre-emptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installations," sources told Hersh...

Seymour Hersh discusses all of this in the New Yorker:
WATCHING LEBANON- Washington’s interests in Israel’s war.

I certainly hope that he's wrong, but I'd bet that he's not.

This does fit in with Sidney Blumenthal's findings about the U.S. government's involvement with the Israeli campaign, as well as our efforts to slow down the ceasefire direction. In that article, he stated "the neocon scenario extends far beyond that objective [of removing Hezbollah from Lebanon] to pushing Israel into a 'cleansing war' with Syria and Iran... which somehow will redeem Bush's beleaguered policy in the entire region."

I think Eric Alterman summed all this up well in a new editorial in The Nation, which explores how the neoconservatives have been using Israel's conflict as as their last-ditch effort to get us involved in an all-out war in the region. His conclusion says it best- "Is it me, or are the people who run this country dangerously out of their minds?".

Spoiler alert... the answer is yes.

[See also previous entry for Hersh's original revelations last April that the Bush administration was secretly planning a war with Iran: "You say we're headed to war. I don't know why you say that."

PS- The ceasefire, fragile as it is, holds. Here's where that situation stands:
-AP: Israel-Lebanon cease-fire goes into effect
-AP: Olmert acknowledges war's 'deficiencies'
-AP: Hezbollah claims victory against Israel
-AP Analysis: When will the next war come?]