Bush's "they're defending themselves" stance concerning Israel is backfiring on him in a big way. He's even losing the support of his most loyal pet, British PM Tony Blair.
What I want to know is since when does Bush decide for the entire UN what demands must be met before a cease-fire is called?
The Bush administration may have badly miscalculated in insisting that any Mideast cease-fire be tied to long-term objectives. As the toll on Lebanese civilians has soared, even moderate Arab governments have turned into U.S. critics, and Hezbollah's support has climbed across the region.
Bush's most steadfast ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, joined the ranks of those expressing frustration after Israel's Sunday bombing in the village of Qana that killed many civilians, most of them women and children. "We have to speed this whole process up," Blair said. "This has got to stop and stop on both sides."
Anger was brewing all across the Arab world as the U.N. Security Council prepared to take up the issue. Calls for an immediate cease-fire were coming from traditional U.S. allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.
Even the democratically elected prime minister of Lebanon, Fuad Saniora - whose leadership Bush often salutes - insisted that talk of a larger peace package must wait until the firing stops. "We will not negotiate until the Israeli war stops shedding the blood of innocent people," said Saniora.
And where Saniora initially was critical of Hezbollah, he is now praising the militant group and its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, for helping to defend Lebanon.
These haven't been good days for Bush's goal of spreading democracy through the Middle East.
"I think we made a huge mistake by giving Israel a blank check," said Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution. "Hezbollah, after six years of relative restraint and working inside a coalition government, is accused of kidnapping a grand total of two people. A good case could be made for not doing anything."
Yet in a speech Monday in Miami, Bush showed that recent events, including the Qana killings, have had little impact on his position.
He once again depicted Israel's battle with Hezbollah as part of a wider struggle against terrorism and declined to lay blame equally on both sides even as he mourned the loss of "innocent life" both in Israel and Lebanon.
"Israel is exercising its right to defend itself," Bush said. Separately, in an interview Monday with Fox News Channel, Bush said, "stopping for the sake of stopping ... can be OK, except it won't address the root cause of the problem."
In his Miami speech, Bush laid out the same series of conditions for accepting a cease-fire that he has relied on for most of the past three weeks: Hezbollah must disarm and return the two Israeli soldiers it kidnapped on July 12, Iran and Syria must end their financial and logistical support for Hezbollah, the Saniora government must be able to exercise control of all Lebanese territory.
Bush's unnuanced support for Israel - backed by unusual allies, some congressional Democrats - is becoming an increasingly tough sell for the United States as it presses for a comprehensive package before the U.N. Security Council.
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