CEDAR REVOLUTION DOWN THE DRAIN. Don't miss Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's Washington Post op-ed. Keep in mind that Israel's initial objective here seems to have been to give the Lebanese government a swift kick in the ass in hopes of convincing them that letting Hezbollah run free in the south was a danger to all of Lebanon and that they ought to try and clamp down. As you'll see from Siniora's article, the military strikes have accomplished the reverse, pushing Siniora -- and, indeed, Lebanese opinion in all religious groups -- into alignment with Hezbollah's views.
Fred Kaplan asks the good question of whether Bush understands his own policies. For over a year now, what he keeps saying about Lebanon is that we need to be supporting its democratically (sort of) elected government and that the Hezbollah issue should be understood in those terms. And he keeps saying it, as if Siniora is an enthusiastic supporter of current Israeli and American policies.
--Matthew Yglesias
