Imprisoned by its war on terror framework, the Bush administration supported Israel in a disastrous war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in the summer of 2006.
The American administration is trying to achieve any gain in the shadow of the embarrassment hitting it because of its failures in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine after the failure of Israel's war on Lebanon and the retreat of America's project in the region.
Israel lost their power to intimidate during the second war with Lebanon.
I think you can take the recent war in Lebanon as a very good example of how this plays. The Americans and their allies clearly stood back - clearly in the eyes of Muslims - and basically said to the Israelis, "Do what you need to do, and we'll hold the ring for you and not call a cease-fire." That perception in the Muslim world very much played to the anti-American sentiment.
The Israelis are very smart about politics and strategy, but there are a few exceptions. One is Lebanon, the other is Gaza, where they were completely inept.
Since 2006, when the Second Lebanon War killed perhaps 2,000 Lebanese, many of them civilians, and led to the destruction of an entire section of Beirut, the northern border has been absolutely quiet.
In 1982, Israel began an invasion across its northern border, seeking to root out elements of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Israeli military wreaked destruction all the way up to Beirut and forced the P.L.O. out of Lebanon. It also defeated the Syrian Army and, particularly, the Air Force wherever it engaged them.
It will be another disaster, after Irangate. Not only that, not only this longest Arab - Israeli confrontation: but also the most important and successful war of attrition which still continues in the south of Lebanon.
[Alexander Haig and Ariel Sharon ] casualties in this war were more than in all the previous Arab - Israeli confrontations. If you remember, it is the only war [in 1982] which hasn't a hero among the Israeli generals.
There is, then, a link between the logistics of perception, the wars in Lebanon and the Gulf as well as with CNN and the Pentagon.
