Israeli Leaders Fault Bush on War (For Egging on Olmert)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/081206.html

Amid the political and diplomatic fallout from Israel’s faltering invasion of Lebanon, some Israeli officials are privately blaming President George W. Bush for egging Prime Minister Ehud Olmert into the ill-conceived military adventure against the Hezbollah militia in south Lebanon.

Bush conveyed his strong personal support for the military offensive during a White House meeting with Olmert on May 23, according to sources familiar with the thinking of senior Israeli leaders.

Olmert, who like Bush lacks direct wartime experience, agreed that a dose of military force against Hezbollah might damage the guerrilla group’s influence in Lebanon and intimidate its allies, Iran and Syria, countries that Bush has identified as the chief obstacles to U.S. interests in the Middle East.

As part of Bush’s determination to create a “new Middle East” – one that is more amenable to U.S. policies and desires – Bush even urged Israel to attack Syria, but the Olmert government refused to go that far, according to Israeli sources.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. What's a little proxy war between friends?

Sort of indicates that jr has tapped out his little tin man army in Iraq & needed to call up the reinforcements.

The results aren't too good. Hez is calling this thing a victory. Another ill conceived backfired scheme brought to you by the neocons.

[RamboLiberal]

2. Looks like some in Israel are quickly turning on Olmert

Olmert cannot remain in the prime minister's office

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/749484.html

[Tempest]

3. The whole country has turned on Olmert

Olmert's approval rating has gone from 75% at the start of the war to just under 50%.

[Selatius]

4. Olmert probably succeeded in making Hezbollah stronger, not weaker

After this episode is over, I don't believe Hezbollah will be short of new recruits anytime soon. The damage wrought on civilian infrastructure and the civilian death toll has alienated countless Lebanese civilians. Hezbollah could be attractive to those who lost family members in Israeli air raids.

[ninkasi]

5. There's nothing Shrub likes better

than getting other people to fight and die for a cause he believes in. Just as long as it's not him, or his cronies, or their own precious off-spring.

[izzie]

8. I think Bush loves war and the military.

It looks from here like it is envy. I just have it in my head that he would have loved to have been a hero. You know shot down in a plane or some such thing. Having lived with-in that society for many years I will say the service is full of those types. It gives them meaning to their life or the ones I have seen. I would think that type have been around for ever. One reason the 'founders' did not want one person to have war powers. They knew it from their history.

[JohnnyRingo]

6. Probably had Rumsfeld in the Oval Office at the time

"Cakewalk"

[Peace Patriot]

7. I've felt all along that what we were looking at was Plan B of the

Bushite/NeoCon "Project for a New American Century": get Israel to do it. The long-standing "Project" is to invade and dominate all Middle Eastern oil fields. With EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT of the American people opposed to any U.S. participation in a widened Mideast war (in one poll posted here at DU), and over 70% now turned against the Iraq War/Occupation (up from 56% BEFORE the invasion)--and the entire rest of the world opposed to both--the Bushites couldn't proceed. :think: Aha, Israel! Take advantage of Israel's fear and vulnerability, and Bushite control over the purse strings, and Israel's militaristic leadership, and have them be the vanguard into Lebanon, to knock over another defenseless Arab country, and create sufficient chaos for a "Gulf of Tonkin"-type incident to be arranged, by which the Bush junta could drag us into it with relative impunity (especially given the Diebold Congress).

This is the first concrete evidence to arise to confirm this thesis. RamboLiberal, thank you for the post! I based it on knowledge of the Bushites and their nefarious aims, but I wasn't sure of Israel's motives, which I think were a combination of carrying out the NeoCon plan and also, perhaps, fear with regard to collapse of support for the Bush junta in the U.S. and desire to gain some strategic advantage--land, water, buffer zones--before the shit hits the fan here. Israel's rightwing leadership has made a tragic--and possibly fatal--error in allying itself with this despised regime. There has never been a more treacherous cabal of thieves, war profiteers and murderers than the Bush Cartel. They are no friend of Israel, and would abandon Israel in a cold minute, if they say profit in it. Their buds are the Saudi sultans and the bin Ladens. Israel's only true friend in the world right now is the American people, and they have now put that support at risk as well.

Israel could gain billions of friends tomorrow--the world would cry out with joy--if its leadership only had the vision, creativity and energy to break from the Bush Cartel and form a regional alliance to evict the Bushites from the Middle East. I think Israel's safety and future--and its potential contribution to Middle Eastern culture, which could be great--are dependent on Israel developing a sense REGIONAL self-determination, and a feeling for the common good of all Middle Eastern peoples, and undertaking bold initiatives, say, a dramatic gesture of reconciliation with Iran. (--could be done with an apology to the Iranian people for helping to destroy Iran's democracy in 1954, and inflicting them with the horrible Shah for 25 years. No wonder they hate Israel!) Taking land from the Palestinians and the Lebanese--and the wanton killing--is not the way to go about this, to say the least. Israel needs to REVERSE COURSE. And soon.

The Iraq war and other Bushite policies have bankrupted the U.S. We have suffered a grave loss of prestige in the world. There is going to be a huge snapback in isolationism here, as we try to rebuild our shattered economy and confidence, hopefully along new and visionary lines. This rightwing militaristic Israeli/US alliance is NOT SUSTAINABLE. And PNAC is a mad, unfeasible, unsustainable policy--basically a private corporate oil war, using non-existent US cash and credit, and US cannon fodder, to occupy the entire Middle East on a permanent basis. It is completely untenable, and Israel could easily be destroyed in the conflagration. So Israel has got to think of something BETTER--like peace, justice, prosperity, equity, and maybe even a Middle Eastern cultural renaissance, spurred by some sort of "truth and reconciliation" initiative (a la South Africa).