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July 18, 2006
This is the fullest transcript (the BBC's version) of Bush and Blair informally discussing the Middle East at the recent G-8 summit in St Petersburg whilst sharing some food over lunch Their conversation is an eye opener for "incisive" geopolitical analysis.
 Bush and Blair assume that Hezbollah and Hamas are the tools of Syria and Iran and that the big blow-up is Syria's fault, for putting Hizbullah up to provoking Israel.
There is nothing in the transcript about Israeli actions in Gaza. There is no reference to the destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure by the Israeli air force. Israel is not a protagonist. It is justing reactiing to provocation. If Hezbollah and Hamas stop provoking Israel then the big blow-up quietens down.
Blair's poodle status is there for all to see---his preparing the ground justification of a trip to the Middle East in advance of Condoleezza Rice is cringe-making.
There was nothing about the possibility of Israel actually engaging in mediation to secure the release of its soldier by offering the release of some Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in exchange. Nope, nothing.
The disportionate Israeli response is accepted as a given. It's just a case of getting 'Syria, to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over.' Simple isn't it? Bush is so incisive.
The transcript sure does gives you confidence in these guys. Maybe we should start thinking that they have little idea of what is actually happening? Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbulla , is saying that vowed no military operation will return the two soldiers, and that only another prisoner swap will secure their freedom.
Meanwhile, back on the ground:
Bill Leak
Won't devastating Gaza only increase support for the Palestinian Hamas militants? Won't bombing Lebanon's infrastructure (its main and subsidiary airports, seaports, highways, bridges, communications systems, and water and power plants), completely blockading its ports and entryways and bombing urban areas only increase support for Hizbollah and undermine the already weak Lebanese government?
Oh, by the way, the two leaders reckon, things are going pretty well in the Middle East these days. I reckon the US is providing cover for Israel to fulfill its military objectives. Presumbly that means the US wants to give time to Israel to get rid of Hizbullah: a desire that fits in perfectly with the US's war on terror - (it considers Hizbullah to be a terrorist organization) and its vision of the Middle East. So the situation is not about to end soon. Presumably, we have a deep strategy 'that focuses on Israel's major adversary, Iran, and simultaneously strives to sustain Israeli hegemony over its neighbors.'
The Times says that it will have to be the Lebanese themselves who fix the Lebanon.
But that will depend on them excising Hezbollah from their territory and politics, something that they may not be able to do alone, and may not want to do at all.
In contrast an editorial in the Daily Star in Beruit is more incisive:
What has been missing is a consensus with sufficient strength and appeal to forge a genuinely Lebanese identity. Hizbullah has always been the missing catalyst in that consensus, and the current crisis provides an opportunity to fulfill the resistance movement's potential as cornerstone of a new stability. This can only happen, though, if Nasrallah is able to keep his party's fate - and therefore his country's - from becoming intertwined with the problems that plague Iran and Syria's relations with the international community. He has the power to do this by empowering Lebanon's government - not Germany's or Egypt's or anyone else's - to negotiate on Hizbullah's behalf. Only thus can he begin to refute, once and for all, the suspicion that his priorities are regional ones, and that local issues and the people they affect are only tools and pawns in a wider game in which most Lebanese have little stake and even less interest.
The Israelis do have a right to "defend themselves," but defense cannot be achieved through indiscriminate warfare. The Israelis are drawing the Gordian knot of violence and retribution even tighter through escalation.
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It also appears they deliberate on these things in the same manner we do. It looks like they have no better or insider information, they surmise from the same patterns we do.