flanerie.org

I had the misfortune of spending 100 minutes driving home on Friday. The double misfortune was that I listened to the Bush/Blair news conference while my life inched by on the tarmac.

The Israel/Lebanon situation is a mess and not one easily resolved.

Hezbollah decided to annoy the hornets and rather than throw stones at the nest and run away, stood right next it while repeatedly whacking it with a stick. The result was as desired by Hezbollah as it was predictable by the rest of us.

Israel for its part defenestrated originality and went for all out reprisals. I am reminded of the Yakuza - they don't kill you; they kill your family, your friends, anyone who has ever met you. It is collective punishment for the entire population of the country that hosted Hezbollah. Illegal though collective punishment is, the Israeli government can barely be bothered to deny that this is the strategy.

Meanwhile Hezbollah is sitting pretty. Israel cannot possibly afford to back away now - that would be admission that the radicals cannot be defeated. So instead they will need to take southern Lebanon and occupy it while Hezbollah simply disappear back into the general population and pick off Israeli soldiers one or two a week.

It is history repeating.

The difference this time, supposedly, is the new world order(tm). We have an economic powerhouse that is happy to use military might to spread democracy and freedom, and to hold on to its wealth. The US has a choice between letting this play out for the next ten years and then start the cycle again, or intervening.

Not for the first time, the US figures that long term debilitating war is better for business than short term political and military action. So the US are busy arming Israel, ensuring the Hezbollah has no shortage of backers, while the UK pretends to care about the humanitarian crisis and tags along with uncle.

Bush and Blair declared a 'framework' and a 'clear path ahead', without actually saying what they were going to do. The 'framework' will do nothing to protect the peoples of nothern Israel or southern Lebanon. The framework is made of air and gutlessness. The framework means lets run through this tired old shit just one more time.

The alternative is to come down heavily on those who continue the violence. Stop the direct arms supply, intervene in the indirect supply, support the institutions of state in Lebanon, promote trade and wealth creation, facilitate talks and slap down those who act against any or all of these.

Unfortunately there is no new world order, there is no war on terror, there is no promotion of democracy and human dignity. There is only the middle ages repeating and repeating.