Israel's War With Hezbollah Will Likely Ruin U.S. Iraq Effort

It is an unfortunate fact, but more likely than not, Israel's battle with Hezbollah wil likely ruin any U.S. hopes of success in Iraq. As bad as the violence in Lebanon is, in Iraq things are far worse since this new warfront with violence up dramaticly. An average of 100 persons are losing their lives each day in Iraq now. Violent attacks on American forces are up 40% since this new warfront. Even a serious rift between the Iraqi government and the U.S. government is beginning to develop over Israel's involvement with battling Hezbollah.

And this situation is not likely to soon blow over. If Israel really intends to prevent Hezbollah from creating any new potential for future violence, then a long ground war that could become like another Vietnam for Israel battling Hezbollah for weeks, months or years could continue. And both Syria and Iran may find new ways to resupply these Hezbollah fighters with supply lines, risking a wider war.

Violence between Israel and Hezbollah may have lightened up a little while a flood of refugees of floods into Syria or out of Lebanon. today 50,000 refugess invaded Syria, many leaving homes and jobs behind, and not all wealthy tourists. How ling before massive tent cities in Syria are needed may be within days.

This latest battle with Hezbollah by Israel was intended to solve a terrorism problem. But instead it leaves a wide swarth of collateral damage, including destroying the prospects of the U.S. to achieve setting up a moderate democratic government in Iraq, and only invites more MidEast radicalism. The U.S. just seems too close to Israel, and too much in lockstep with their goals, which hurts the U.S.'s own foreign policy goals which may not always be exactly the same as Israel's.

Only days ago the U.S. was able to garner international cooperation against the irresponsible North Korean missile launches. Now with the U.S. seeming to want to give Israel a free hand to battle the Hezbollah terrorists no matter how much damage takes place, part of the collateral damage may be U.S. credibility on foreign policy, which already has suffered immensely under Bush. Problems in the MidEast are only likely to worsen as a result of all this, and the U.S. influence in world affairs really suffer. This doesn't serve the interests of world peace at all.