Simple Middle East solution from a simple mind

a mind much better suited to brush-clearing in crawford than being the spokesman for the world's sole remaining superpower... sadly, the guy just doesn't get it...

US President George W Bush has said he suspects that Syria is trying to use the crisis in the Middle East to reassert its influence in Lebanon.

He suggested that Hezbollah activities were being orchestrated by Damascus.

Israel attacked Lebanon after the militant group captured two soldiers in a cross-border raid last week.

Mr Bush said it was very important that the Lebanese government, formed after Syria ended its occupation a year ago, should survive and succeed.

first of all, the survival and success of the lebanese government is not being imperiled by syria at the moment... secondly, you'd think that, after the reaction to having such mindlessness revealed at the g-8 conference in front of an unexpectedly open microphone, george might have gotten a clue... silly me... just in case we need reminding, let's revisit juan cole's comment from my post the other day...

It is an astonishingly simple-minded view of the situation, painted in black and white and making assumptions about who is who's puppet and what the Israeli motivations are. Israel doesn't appear as a protagonist. It is purely reactive. Stop provoking it, and it suddenly stops its war.

Since Israel is just being provoked and has no ambitions of its own, in this reading, it is useless to begin with a ceasefire. That treats the two sides as both provoking one another. Here, only Hizbullah matters, so you lean on Syria to lean on it, and, presto, peace breaks out.

It is a little window into the superficial, one-sided mind of the man, who has for six years been way out of his depth.

I come away from it shaken and trembling.

all bush is doing is feeding the neocon wet dream of expanding the already-expanding conflict to syria and iran... and, i suppose, that is precisely his intent...

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