Bad Strategies Gone Awry

Interesting read concerning the current strife in the middle east:

A Futile Little War- The Belgravia Dispatch

If adults had been at the helm, and people weren't chattering on about "root causes" and "birth pangs" like naive pimpled adolescents, we wouldn't be in this mess, having instead sought an immediate cease-fire in early days, and asked the Israelis to restrict their military retaliation solely to actual Hezbollah military targets in the south, and very select strategic targets elsewhere. But no, adults weren't at the helm, and the consequences have been rather devastating.

Roger Cohen:

This position has allowed Israel to do its own post-9/11 thing. "Everyone understands that a victory for Hezbollah is a victory for world terror," said Haim Ramon, the Israeli justice minister.

Not so: A victory for Hezbollah is a victory for Hezbollah, which is not Al Qaeda, which is not the Palestinian national movement, which is not the Iraqi insurgency, which is not homegrown European Muslim suicide bombers.

Trying to turn the problems of the world into a single undifferentiated issue - the war on Islamic terror - does nobody any good.

Witness the current mayhem, a reflection of a terrible American failure to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in any serious way over the past five years.