Middle East Disaster and Bush's Ineptitude

Since Israel has started its excessive retribution against Lebanon (2 Israeli soldiers captured and 8 killed, versus 210 Lebanese killed, all but 14 of them civilians), it has highlighted the ineptitude of the Bush administration's foreign policy. With the Bush administration creating a quagmire in Iraq unnecessarily and entirely ignoring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict apart from a few thumbs up to Sharon (and now Olmert) for some violations of U.N. resolutions and the laws of war, the current situation was all but inevitable. Initially, Condoleeza Rice, US Secretary of State, frowned upon travelling to the Middle East to engage in shuttle diplomacy (defined as "the use of a third party to serve as an intermediary or mediator between two parties who do not talk directly").

Instead, the Bush administration was more focused on brunting the international furore created by Israeli over-reaction. On 'This Week with George Stephanopolous,' Rice was focused on the "root causes" of the violence:

"I'm certainly willing to play whatever role I'm needed to play," she [Rice] said. "We have to go at the root cause. It's fine to have a cessation of violence. We want to have a cessation of violence. We're worried about the escalating casualties on all sides, but unless we go to the fundamentals here, we're going to continue to have these spikes of violence in the Middle East as we have had for the past 30 years."

She seems unaware that Israel has begun widespread bombing of Lebanon, with a focus on civilian infrastructure like the Beiruit airport, government buildings and power plants along with "ports, roads, bridges, factories and petrol stations". This is not the time to deal with the root causes, rather it is a time for an emergency intervention aimed at ending the fighting. Until the Israeli bombing and Hezbollah rocket attacks end, there will be no way to deal with the root causes. The root causes should have been dealt with over the past 5 and a half years of the Bush administration when it was more focused on drawing America into an unnecessary war with Iraq. However, Rice tries to portray Bush as being involved in the crisis. According to Rice on 'This Week':

[She] described President Bush as "deeply engaged" in the Middle East crisis. "The president has spoke out clearly about Israel's right to defend itself," she said.

In essence, the initial reaction of the Bush administration to Israeli bombing of Lebanon was to unconditionally defend the move. Only in the face of continued European pressure has Bush finally agreed that maybe Rice should be sent and maybe there should be a ceasefire. Even on the latter point, however, he was deferential to the Israeli government frowning on the idea of a multilateral force to enforce a cease fire. It is absolutely despicable that a U.S. president can be so supportive of one side's violence in the Middle East. While past presidents have always favored the Israeli side, they were careful to do so while still maintaining an officially neutral position favoring negotiations and an end to the violence. Bush breaks that tradition by officially supporting Israel and opposing moves meant to end the violence and bring the two sides towards a diplomatic rather than military solution.