Condoleezza Rice's Slow Ride To Diplomacy

Condoleezza Rice could not be moving more slowly towards going through the motions of diplomacy in the current MidEast conflict. There is no fast track effort to stop the killing at all, but rather to let Israel have as much time as possible to decimate Hezbollah until some sort U.N. or other international buffer zone is eventually established in Southern Lebanon. In fact the Bush Administration is even putting a delivery of new percision guided bombs headed to Israel on the fast track, that will no doubt beat Condoleezza Rice to the MidEast. When diplomacy is on the slow track and new bomb shipments are on the fast track, then you can pretty well judge where this administration's goals actually lie.

Hezbollah is certainly a problem. This terrorist militia only has used past peace lapses to resupply and grow stronger and stock up on rockets or arms. And rocket attacks on Israel are completely unacceptable. But the region needs to be returned to peace as soon as possible because of the unacceptable level of civilian deaths and destruction to Lebanon which could destabilize this government and allow for a group such as Hezbollah to take control of Lebanon. The dangers for the entire region only grow as this situation drags on.

Hezbollah should not threaten Israel, and any peace agreement should provide a safe buffer between these states. As soon as possible the human suffering of this war should stop. thousands of refugees a day are pouring into Syria, including 50,000 in just one day. This sort of destabilization must come to an end very soon. For the sake of humanity, the people of the MidEast must learn how to live with each other, or otherwise they risk destroying each other.