2 Leaders

Wish it were three:

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan called today for an international “stabilization force’’ to quell the fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militia, while President Bush pungently suggested that Mr. Annan should pay more attention to reining in Hezbollah.

Mr. Blair and Mr. Annan called for a deployment that would be far larger than the 2,000-member United Nations observer force currently stationed in southern Lebanon. Without such a force, “then I think it’s very difficult to see how we restore calm,’’ Mr. Blair said, according to Agence-France Presse.

American and Israeli officials gave a tepid response to the idea, with Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, telling the Knesset that a ceasefire could only come after Hezbollah returns two captured soldiers and that Lebanese, not international soldiers should be deployed along the border, The Associated Press reported.

Here's the deal. The Israelis are playing a very dangerous game, and it'll take a coordinated international effort to talk them off the ledge. Apparently Egypt had to step in and convince Israel to stop a planned ground attack of Beirut.

Lebanon has needed help in ridding themselves of foreign involvement for decades. Last year, under international pressure, Syria withdrew. Hezbollah is a proxy force for those foreign entities, and Lebanon still needs that help. They don't need to be shelled. And world leaders understand that if they don't act to stop the violence, it's not going to end at the Syrian border. These are the type of things that start world wars. Far from celebrating that, and using it as a campaign platform, it behooves the world, in a nuclear age, to do whatever they can to halt that progress.

The Arab-Israeli conflict also doesn't happen in a vaccuum. If you care at all about the 135,000 American troops in Iraq, you know that you'll need to get very involved in this mess, lest al-Sadr's militia be unleashed on those forces. The groups we support in Iraq have natural ties to Hezbollah. Of course, up is becoming down so much in Iraq that now the SUNNIS want us to stay:

As sectarian violence soars, many Sunni Arab political and religious leaders once staunchly opposed to the American presence here are now saying they need American troops to protect them from the rampages of Shiite militias and Shiite-run government forces.

The pleas from the Sunni Arab leaders have been growing in intensity since an eruption of sectarian bloodletting in February, but they have reached a new pitch in recent days as Shiite militiamen have brazenly shot dead groups of Sunni civilians in broad daylight in Baghdad and other mixed areas of central Iraq.

The Sunnis also view the Americans as a “bulwark against Iranian actions here,” a senior American diplomat said. Sunni politicians have made their viewpoints known to the Americans through informal discussions in recent weeks.

The Sunni Arab leaders say they have no newfound love for the Americans. Many say they still sympathize with the insurgency and despise the Bush administration and the fact that the invasion has helped strengthen the power of neighboring Iran, which backs the ruling Shiite parties.

We're now being directly asked to step in the middle of a civil war. That's suicide, and it'll make for some really chaotic times when we have to confront the monster we've created in the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

This neocon fantasy of peace through strength is really crumbling before our eyes, and this absolute disengagement on the part of the American President - save for some cowboy pontificating from his armchair - is unconscionable. As this incoherent foreign policy stumbles along, steering a rudderless ship, the world continues to plunge into chaos. Blair and Annan can only go so far, and the US can protect their interests by engaging and helping Lebanon and Israel expel or at least disarm Hezbollah. But this of course will be tricky, as they're part of the Lebanese government, and the country has a history of civil strife.

Nothing is easy. But doing nothing is worse.

Meanwhile there are reports that we're charging US citizens AN EVACUATION FEE to get out of Lebanon.

Thought I'd cheer you up with that.

P.S. Hilzoy's post is still the best backgrounder I've read about the current situation in Lebanon.