The Cedar Dissolution

Those in the White House (and the Langevin block!) that are leaning on a broken and battered Lebanon to do something about terror after the roads have been bombed out piss me off. After playing up Lebanon as a great example of the democratised new Middle East, they let it go to hell ostensibly over just two soldiers. Anyway, there is so much that has been written about this that I just want to put up some links to some of the better sources.

As always, one of your first stops for Middle East news and information should be Juan Cole. This new war is no exception. Here he pulls apart Dershowitz's guilt-by-association attempt to de-civilianise, uh, civilians. And over here, he examines Israel's war aims and how Bush doesn't comprehend them (but Cheney and Rumsfeld probably do).

Dennis Perrin has been posting a great deal on this topic too. He's going all out on this topic and what he's been writing has been insightful.

David Kaiser reprints a prescient editoral with update commentary here. The article presents an interesting basis for comprehending history - 80-year cycles. (Quickie version: systems are set up to resolve problems in human affairs, after 80 years, all the people who were architects of those systems and recall the problems for which they were designed have all died off. Not appreciating the systems and the rationale that created them, the new generation breaks them apart.)

Tags: Lebanon, Israel, war, Middle East