Will the Middle East Spin out of Control?

As the United Nations works diligently to implement a cease-fire, and as both Israel and Hezbollah work furiously to gain some advantage before its implementation, it is sobering to read Jim Lobe's essay about the "'New Middle East' Out of Control." Here's an excerpt:

Before the Lebanon crisis, Rice appeared to be successfully moving U.S. policy gradually, if fitfully, towards a more realist position, particularly with respect to Iran. But she has now run into a brick wall in Bush himself, according to Insight.

"For the last 18 months, Condi was given nearly carte blanche in setting foreign policy guidelines," it quoted one "senior government source" as saying. "All of a sudden, the president has a different opinion and he wants the last word."

Her problems, however, may not be confined to Bush, according to another report in Thursday's New York Times, which suggested that Cheney -- and his mainly neo-conservative advisers -- has become increasingly assertive in the latest crisis in support of Israel's efforts to crush Hezbollah. (In fact, some of his unofficial advisers, such as Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and former Defence Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, have called for expanding the war to Syria and even Iran.)

In that respect, the current situation recalls the humiliation of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's who in early 2002 sought to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to halt Israel's military offensive in the Palestinian territories -- only to be undercut back home by Cheney and, ironically, by then-national security adviser Rice herself.

"She had as much to do with cutting his legs out from under him vis-à-vis the Middle East as anyone else -- either through outright agreement with Cheney, or, at the minimum, complicity with his views so as to draw even closer to Bush," according to ret. Col Lawrence Wilkerson, Powell's former chief of staff at the State Department.

That experience, of course, confirmed the demise of realist influence in Bush's first term, at least with respect to the Middle East.

That Rice may now find herself in a similar position, having to contend with a resurgent Cheney-led coalition of hawks who are not so much complacent about the course of current events in the Middle East as convinced that their strategy of regional "transformation" by military means will be vindicated, is what is perhaps particularly alarming about the present moment.

"This whole business is nuts -- unless, of course, you believe what the rumor-mongers are beginning to pass around," wrote Wilkerson in reference to the Lebanon war in an email exchange with IPS. "(T)hat this entire affair was ginned up by Bush/Cheney and certain political leaders in Tel Aviv to give cover for the eventual attack by the U.S. on Iran. At first, I refused to believe what seemed to be such insanity. But I am not so certain any longer."

Effectual, fervent prayers are needed for this cease-fire to hold.