I really, really hope that today's developments prove my skepticism about the efficacy of Israel's coercive pressure on Lebanon wrong.BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hezbollah politicians, while expressing reservations, have joined their critics in the government in agreeing to a peace package that includes strengthening an international force in south Lebanon and disarming the guerrillas, the government said.The agreement — reached after a heated six-hour Cabinet meeting — was the first time that Hezbollah has signed onto a proposal for ending the crisis that includes the deploying of international...

This month's Foreign Policy has a forum on the Israel Lobby, building on Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer's very much discussed article in the LRB on the power of the "Israel Lobby" in producing a narrow-interest based but sub-strategically optimal US Foreign Policy in the Middle East.As I walked from the office with my mailbox back to my office, pondering the nice glossy cover on my copy of FP, I pondered the issues in the debate in the contemporary context-- Lebanon.Is the US supporting Israel in its attacks on Hezballah in Lebanon in a manner detrimental to US National Interest?...

Photo courtesy whitehouse.govThis is just a quick followup to my post last week about the risks of escalation in the current Middle Eastern conflict.Israel is apparently ending its incursion into Gaza , but there is very little good news emerging from the region.US Secretary of State Condi Rice is on the case, but she is employing an odd diplomatic style to say the least. News agencies pessimistically report "no sign of a cease-fire."So, is the worst-case still possible? And if we assume that the answer is "yes," then what are the plausible scenarios? How about we begin by pointing out the...

I had lunch yesterday with two of my colleagues at the Mershon Center, John Mueller and Markus Kornprobst. The conversation inevitably turned to the Middle East and the efficacy of US and Israeli policy. As the discussion progressed, I mentioned that when we got back I would be revising my chapter on the French Wars of Religion--a case of trans-national and trans-regional religious movements prompting decades of violent conflict. I said, somewhat flippantly, that I did not believe there were many lessons to draw from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe for current developments.Of...

In an attempt to lighten things up this morning I would like to try something new. Many readers are surely familiar with the practice of "Friday Cat Blogging". Well, I don't have a cat. However, I see no reason to limit this activity to felines. So in the interest of inclusiveness (and since I don't have the time or the strength for a substantive post at the moment) I present to you--Quint:My wife and I adopted him last year from a shelter near our home. As far as we know he is about 2 years-old and is a Pointer-Lab mix. And yes, our lives revolve around him.I beseach my fellow members to...

Courtesy of Marc Lynch over at Abu Aardvark (you should go there and read the whole post):Karen Hughes should quit immediately. Get somebody in as an acting public diplomacy director who is at least going to try.Not much more I can say, after Condoleeza Rice's "birth pangs of a new Middle East" comment. It makes me wonder: what in the hell is the Administration up to? Makes me wonder whether Digby is on to something by linking that kind of language to apocalyptic Christian fundamentalism.Filed as: Rice and Hughes

Pardon my absence from the blog roughly since the current Mideast hostilities began; besides the fact that my blogmates here at the Duck have been doing an admirable job quacking away and trying to provide a little insight into the situation, and the fact that I've just been busy with other work, I haven't felt like I had a lot to say about the situation that hadn't been said already.That changed this morning, when I read in the Washington Post thatIsraeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Israel would accept a temporary international force, preferably headed by NATO, deployed along the...

Thomas Ricks, the accomplished military reporter for the Washington Post, has a front page article excerpted from his upcoming book, Fiasco, yet another richly detailed account of the failures of the US in Iraq.The article is certainly worth reading.Ricks asserts that the US was in trouble from the beginning:The very setup of the U.S. presence in Iraq undercut the mission.Echoing my earlier post, top administration officials were blinded by their own ideological zeal to the on-ground reality:Complicating the U.S. effort was the difficulty top officials had in recognizing what was going on in...