The U.S. is drafting sanctions against Iran as the Iranians continue to give the world the finger regarding their enrichment of uranium. Do not hold your breath waiting for the U.N. Security Council to pass such sanctions, as the Russians or Chinese or both will almost certainly block them.

Former Navy Secretary John Lehman says we are not winning the war. He makes some good points.

The Washington Post still does not get it about rising health insurance costs. While they are absolutely right to cite the figures that show the decline in health insurance coverage among young, middle-class adults, they cannot seem to find their way to the only workable solution. That solution is to discard the system of employer-provided health insurance which was created by the Depression and World War II and go to a system of individual-based health insurance with a government-provided floor of basic coverage for those without the means to afford a private plan. Create a market of 300 million people looking to buy health coverage and I am sure the insurance companies will fall all over themselves to create plans to sell to them.

While much of the discussion recently in foreign policy, military and press circles has been about the possibility of civil war in Iraq, this story makes me wonder if we might be facing a civil war in Mexico.

Dick Morris says it is time for the GOP to triangulate on terror.

David Ignatius likens Iranian President Ahmadinejad's brinkmanship on the nuclear issue with the driving behavior of Tehran taxi drivers. Usually they stop in time. Sometimes they don't.

Christopher Hitchens continues to hammer away at the Plamegate investigation. Can someone please stop the madness?

While the GOP continues to try and pin the "cut and run" label on the Democrats, according to this article most of the Democrats running for Congress do not favor an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, or even a timetable for withdrawal. It appears that most Democrats running for Congress, despite the withdraw now fervor of the anti-war crowd, are taking the responsible view that such a withdrawal would be a disaster for America's position in the world and its efforts in defeating the Islamists.

Michael Barone says the recent British airline bomb plot has given the GOP a significant boost in the polls. Fred Barnes also sees this trend and believes the Republicans now have a chance to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. There is, of course, still a long way to go and much that can happen between now and November. I still believe there is a tremendous anti-incumbent feeling in the public at large. So I am still betting on the Democrats taking control of Congress. But, if the public is more concerned about the terrorist threat as they enter the polls in November, that will certainly bring more independents to stick with the GOP and energize core GOP voters to defend their incumbents.

WPRO TOMORROW MORNING

I will be filling-in for Ron St. Pierre tomorrow morning from 5A-9A on WPRO-AM in Providence, RI. If you live in RI or Southeastern MA please tune in. Among other things, we will talk about the EEE virus, stem cell research, Tom Cruise being dumped by Paramount, and the latest news in RI and the nation.

The Lebanese Army, which is slowly deploying into southern Lebanon, is apparently not very enthusiastic about its mission, according to this account. Meanwhile, the Syrians are objecting to any U.N deployment along their border with Lebanon.

This article from the Washington Post is very sobering, as it describes the growing power and influence of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. It appears as if they are simply waiting us out, having logically concluded that fighting the U.S. military straight up is unwise, especially since it appears more and more likely that those American troops are eventually going to go away.

Ralph Peters is losing faith that there is an American military solution in Iraq, indicating that it is the fault of the Arabs themselves that they cannot build peaceful, democratic societies. He thinks Iraq is the Arabs' last chance.

Israel may go it alone on Iran if the West fails to stop the Iranian nuclear program.

Arnaud de Borchgrave thinks the Iranians have won a round in the world war. Perhaps we should just concede defeat.

As I wrote in my last post, due to domestic political considerations, both here and in Europe, we have no option other than to wait them out. Of course, the Israelis think otherwise.

IRAN RESPONDS

Iranian officials have handed over their response to the incentive package offered by the U.S., the Europeans, Russia and China concerning their nuclear program. It appears that the August 22 date does not have any apocalyptic significance. The Iranian actions, so far, appear to be quite rational, which provides powerful evidence that the doomsayers are wrong and the Iranians can be deterred, even if they go nuclear, which seems inevitable.

Joel Rosenberg says the Iranians are not rational, but can be called the new Nazi Germany. If so, they cannot be deterred. Robert Tracinski also takes the view that we cannot wait on events. I disagree. As long as the American people are not politically behind robust military action, that action will fail, as we saw in Vietnam and are seeing now in Iraq. If we are to fight another war, this time against Iran, a war that will be much larger and more difficult than the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we must have the united support of the American people at the very least. Certainly it would be even better to have the support of the Europeans and the acquiescence, if not support, of Russia and China. To have that kind of support we will have to wait for the Iranians to strike the first blow. While it would no doubt save lives and prevent suffering if we were to prevent the Iranians from striking that blow it is more important, in my view, to have the complete support of the American people to wage the kind of total war that will be necessary to destroy Islamic Fascism, just as a similar effort destroyed Fascism in the 1940s. As in the period of 1939-41, America must wait until we are attacked before we can use all our power to finish the fight.

In Lebanon, a government official is warning militants not to take actions that might break the truce. Meanwhile, the Europeans are balking at committing any troops to the U.N. force for Lebanon.

John R. Thompson wonders why the West continues to avert its eyes to the threat posed by Iran. The Iranians themselves are not sitting still, engaging in military exercises and asserting that they will not stop enriching uranium.

More violence in Iraq yesterday. Today, the Iraqi Ambassador to the U.S. writes this op-ed piece in the Washington Post asking Americans not to abandon his country.

A Taliban offensive in Afghanistan results in the Taliban losing 71 men to NATO and Afghan Army counter-attacks.

Edward Luttwak thinks the gloomy assessment of Israel's performance in the recent war is premature. In Israel, politicians and generals are enduring the fallout from their poor performance, real or perceived.

Ralph Peters believes we are living in a moment of truth. Like VDH, he believes the West is beginning to regain the spirit that led to the conquest of the world. I still have my doubts.

Mark Steyn compares the attitude of the U.S. government and people immediately after the 9/11 attacks with the current attitude. It is not a pretty picture.

The common thread remains the same. The peoples of the West are under attack from Islamist fanatics, whether of the Sunni or Shia persuasion. So far, the West has acted with some restraint, at least as compared to the historical norms. The question is whether or not the peoples of the West have been so spiritually weakened as to make them incapable of the really robust response that will, in my opinion, eventually be required. If VDH and Ralph Peters are correct, it is only a matter of time (and the number and severity of the attacks of the enemy) before the peoples of the West demand that truly severe counter-measures are taken. I hope they are right. I fear it will require a mushroom cloud over America or Europe before the people are aroused to demand a full-scale response.

Caroline Glick, a columnist for the Jerusalem Post, says Israel needs to be prepared for the coming wars. It is a sobering analysis. If she is right, it could be the spark for the big war that I see on the horizon.

Israel says it is determined to prevent Hezbollah's re-armament. I have no doubt that they are determined, but can they succeed? I think not.

Victor Davis Hanson, despite all evidence to the contrary, still has hope that the people of the West are awakening to the Islamist threat.

I think the people of the West are still oblivious. I think the people of the West have been so infected by the spirit of political correctness that they are incapable of even seeing the truth, much less the ability to respond effectively to it. The Israeli defeat at the hands of Hezbollah and, by extension, Iran, has profoundly altered my thinking about the situation. Israel is a Western nation. It is populated by Western people, many of who are originally from or have ancestors from Europe and America. It has a Western system of government, a Western press, and a Western military. It is subject to the same intellectual trends that we have seen in Europe and, too a somewhat lesser extent, in America. But I always thought that the Israelis unique position in the world, surrounded by enemies, despised by so many in the world, with a history within living memory of efforts made by others to exterminate them, would make them different. Surely the Israelis would not fall prey to the debilitating effects of Western political correctness? Alas, it seems that they have. Their own leaders refuse to see the magnitude of their defeat.

This does not bode well for our survival in this struggle. Even if, as VDH has written many times, our system has created an overwhelming economic and military superiority over our enemies which precludes the possibility of our destruction (and that includes Israel) at the hands of the Islamists, the fact that we are spiritually weaker than our enemies only serves to bolster the belief among them that they can win using violent means. This is a prescription for miscalculation that will lead to tremendous destruction.

WBZ AGAIN TONIGHT

I will be filling-in for Steve Leveille again tonight on WBZ-AM in Boston from Midnight until tomorrow morning at 5 AM. Among the topics I am considering for discussion:

The ex-wife of the guy arrested in Thailand for murdering JonBenet Ramsey says he has an alibi. The more I read about this guy and his confession, the more skeptical I become. Are you buying this guy's story?

Will the new mandatory health plan for Massachusetts residents really work? A panel has set rates for poor people, and not everybody is happy.

Did Israel win the war against Hezbollah? Ralph Peters says no. David Warren wonders if Israel can survive the catastrophe.

Lebanon is sending troops into the south, but they will not disarm Hezbollah.

The situation is deteriorating in Iraq. More clashes between various factions, more bombs aimed at our soldiers. Can we win?

Who should control Congress, Republicans or Democrats? David Broder says the situation looks grim for the GOP in the Heartland.

A judge strikes down the warrantless wiretap program. Do you approve or disapprove?

Will 'gay marriage' lead inevitably to the acceptance of polygamy and polyamory? Will it destroy the traditional family? This article argues that it will.

WBZ TONIGHT

I will be filling-in for Steve Leveille on WBZ-AM in Boston tonight starting at Midnight until 5 AM tomorrow morning. Among the items I am considering for discussion:

Are we at war, or should the terrorist threat be considered a criminal justice matter?

Who do you have more confidence in when it comes to running the "War on Terror", Republicans or Democrats?

Who won, Israel or Hezbollah, and does it matter to us? This article from the New York Times seems to indicate that it is Hezbollah that is taking advantage on the ground by building more political power in Lebanon.

Is the Iraq War a failure?

Should the U.S. admit fewer legal immigrants each year. A new study from the Census Bureau contains some eye-popping numbers, including for Massachusetts as detailed in this Boston Globe article.

Should Congress raise the minimum wage? Here is an argument against it.

Did Iran blunder by prodding Hezbollah to make war against Israel, or is the end of the war through the U.N. Resolution 1701 simply another Munich?

Jeff Jacoby has some thoughts on the recent Mike Wallace interview of President Ahmadinejad of Iran.

The Pentagon is studying its errors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Peter Galbraith says the West cannot win the fight in Iraq. He thinks the country is already in a civil war and beginning to come apart.

The Israelis will stop their pullout of Lebanon if the Lebanese Army does not deploy. Strategypage has some thoughts on how this might play out. Hezbollah is balking at the prospect of withdrawing from Southern Lebanon.

Norman Podhoretz has a lengthy defense of the Bush Doctrine in Commentary Magazine. Podhoretz believes that President Bush has not abandoned his doctrine, despite the pronouncements of some in the MSM as well as some Neo-Conservatives. He likens the President and his doctrine to Harry Truman in 1952. While Truman left office in early 1953 as a terribly unpopular President (based on polling numbers), his doctrine was adopted by President Eisenhower and all subsequent administrations until the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is a long article, but well worth the time to read it.

According to this article in the Jerusalem Post, the Lebanese government may already be backtracking on their agreement to disarm Hezbollah.

Caroline Glick, also in the Jerusalem Post, is demanding that the Ohlmert government fall. I suspect that the level of criticism will rise in the coming days and her wish may be granted.

As Hezbollah fighters emerge from the rubble with the quiet air of soldiers who know they have fought bravely and well, more evidence is also emerging that their success was driven, in part, by the quality of their Iranian-made weapons.

In Iran, crowds are celebrating Hezbollah's victory over Israel, while President Assad of Syria says the result of the conflict has destroyed America's plan for the Middle East.

According to a column in the Jerusalem Post the result of the Israeli-Hezbollah war is an unmitigated disaster for Israel and the United States. I agree. Hezbollah is now stronger politically in Lebanon and more popular across the wider Muslim world than it has ever been. The Lebanese government is weaker and its army will almost certainly not be in any position to enforce a disarmament of Hezbollah. Iran can feel more confident in its own measures to guard against any air campaign waged against it by Israel or the United States. The Islamofascists win another round.

Fascistic is the right word to describe them.

Mark Steyn also believes they have the advantage in not being tied to any nation state.

Tigerhawk has started a discussion about militarizing the West to meet the threat. As part of the discussion he correctly delineates the intellectual divide between those on the pro-war Right who believe that a bigger war is on the horizon, and those on the anti-war Left who continue to believe that negotiations can lead to peace. He links to this piece from Michael Ledeen, who re-prints an interesting analysis of the intellectual divide.

The thinking of the Left about the problem of Islamofascism is best exemplified by this piece in the Guardian.

Seymour Hersh links the Israeli action to our own military thinking concerning Iran.

END OF THE ISRAELI-HEZBOLLAH WAR?

After much diplomatic wrangling, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution last night that will end the fighting in Lebanon, as long as the warring parties agree to it. So far, the Israeli and Lebanese governments have accepted the proposal. It is still unclear as to what Hezbollah will do, although they are represented in the Lebanese cabinet and their representatives approved of the proposal. The proposal will call for a "cessation of hostilities" at a date and time to be determined by the Secretary General in consultation with the Prime Ministers of Israel and Lebanon, followed by the expansion of the current UN force in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL) to 15,000 troops and the introduction of 15,000 troops from the Lebanese Army. All importation of weapons not explicitly authorized by the Lebanese government will be prohibited. All armed militias will be disarmed, as had been called for previously by UN Resolution 1559. It is expected that the cessation will happen sometime early next week, as the Lebanese government will officially accept the proposal today and the Israelis will do the same tomorrow. In the meantime, the Israelis are continuing with their previously announced ground offensive, presumably to clear Hezbollah from as much territory as possible in order to make the job of UNIFIL and the Lebanese Army easier. As they deploy, the Israelis will retreat, until eventually the Israelis will be completely out of Lebanon once again.

Can this work? If Hezbollah refuses to cooperate and continues to launch rockets into Israel, then the Israelis will continue to respond militarily, and the war will go on. Under such conditions the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL will not be able to deploy. If Hezbollah does stop firing rockets and allows the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL to deploy, the Israelis will be required to retreat. I expect that to happen (unless their Iranian masters in Tehran have another idea).

So, if the resolution is implemented, who won? Time will tell. But, I expect that Hezbollah will not disarm. I am not confident that the UNIFIL force and the Lebanese Army will have the motivation to force the issue. I am not confident that the Syrians and Iranians will cease in their efforts to re-arm and re-supply Hezbollah. I am not confident that the Lebanese government will be willing or able to stop them in those efforts. Therefore, if Hezbollah does not disarm and if they are re-supplied, then Hezbollah will be the winner. Certainly, while stopping the rocket attacks will be a short-term positive for Israel, if Hezbollah is still intact as an armed force, they will remain a danger to Israel.

Count me among the very skeptical when it comes to the success of this deal. Count me also among those who find the performance of the Israeli government and the IDF leadership as troubling, at best, and disheartening, at worst.

Apparently, the bomb plot for airliners over the Atlantic was planned for August 16. I have no idea if the date has any significance, but many believe it was intended to be "the next big one".

H.D.S. Greenway says the Brits are again wondering why some of their homegrown Pakistani Muslims are turning to radical Islam. He implies it has something to do with Britain's foreign policy. Gerard Baker disagrees.

The names of those arrested have been released. The remarkable similarity of the names (gee, they are all young Muslim men) has some asking again why it is that we do not profile the people who try to get on airliners.

Newt Gingrich responds to Richard Holbrooke. The key difference between the thinking of people like Holbrooke and people like Gingrich is that Gingrich believes (as I do) that the enemies we face cannot be negotiated with or appeased because they REALLY BELIEVE IN their fanatical ideology and if they get a hold of nuclear weapons THEY WILL USE THEM, no matter how many people (themselves included) die as a result.

While the big news of the day is the discovery by British authorities of a bomb plot aimed at airliners flying from the U.K. to the U.S., there are a lot of other interesting things going on.

The Israeli cabinet has authorized, finally, an expansion of the ground campaign in southern Lebanon, but not without a great deal of wrangling, according to some reports. Meanwhile, there is a report that the Israelis found the bodies of ten Iranian Revolutionary Guards soldiers among Hezbollah dead in southern Lebanon. If this is true, then there can be no more doubt (if there ever was any) that Iran is directly involved in the conflict (somewhat reminiscent of the German "volunteers" who fought for Franco in the Spanish Civil War).

John Batchelor is also thinking of historical parallels in this column.

David Warren has some anecdotal evidence to conclude that some Canadians, at least, are waking up the war they are fighting, even if most are not yet ready to admit it.

David Bernstein says civilian casualties are part of the price we pay in fighting terrorism.

Richard Holbrooke brings up the "Guns of August" analogy, as others have done over the last few week.

Joel Rosenberg ponders the significance of August 22, as we await the Iranian government's response on the nuclear issue.

Arnaud de Borchgrave also has an overview of the state of the world in these troubled times.

No historical analogy is perfect, of course. Thus, each analysis that compares this troubled month of August to August of 1914 or August of 1939 is problematic. But there are lessons to be learned from studying each of those periods. In the first, European leaders set into motion a series of events, each escalation leading to further escalation, until all the war plans were put into effect and all the armies were on the march. Once they clashed and the rivers of blood began to flow, it was impossible for the leaders to do anything but try and fight it out to a victorious conclusion, which was not reached until four years had passed and millions had died. In the second, European leaders, desperate to prevent a repeat of the bloodletting of the Great War, as they called it then, tried over and over again to appease the desires of the messianic madman who had taken the reins of power in one of Europe's most powerful nations. Only at the end did they finally realize that he could not be appeased, but by then they were forced to take his hammer blows, and Europe came perilously close to descending into a new Dark Age which could have lasted for decades or even centuries. Only the perseverance of a man named Winston Churchill and the stouthearted Britons he lead, and the fatal decision by Hitler to attack Russia and, later, declare war on America, kept that Dark Age from lasting longer than four years.

The international political situation of today bears some similarities to both historical instances, but also has some significant differences. First and foremost is the fact that the ideology which dominates the factions determined to make war on the West is not limited to one nation. Islamist thought is diffused throughout the Muslim world, which makes it a truly global phenomenon, which was never the case with Naziism. That makes the movement far more dangerous than the Nazis ever were in the battlefield of ideas. On the other hand, the Islamists do not have control of a country with the power of a Nazi Germany. Iran is powerful, but they are not in the same league as the Germany of 1939-45. This fact may change with the passage of time, and it may not be relevant given the messianic views of President Ahmadinejad.

While Hitler had a vision of a "Thousand Year Reich" built through conquest, Ahmadinejad has visions of an apocalypse preceding the return of the "Hidden Imam". Like the generals of 1914, Ahmadinejad, and the Ayatollah Khamenei behind him, may have a plan of action based on their religious beliefs which, once set into motion, will cause all the other actors to put their plans into motion (which we may be already seeing in southern Lebanon).

What can the U.S. do about it? If Ahmadinejad is really determined to spark a global war, I doubt very seriously that there is anything of a diplomatic or economic nature that the U.S. and its allies can do to stop him. Then, like the Europeans in 1914 or the Americans in December of 1941, it will just be a matter of fighting it through to victory, although the cost may be even more terrible than what was experienced in those wars.

Joe Lieberman will run as an independent this Fall, after losing yesterday in the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont. Dick Morris says he will win.

Plenty of analysis about the race at RealClearPolitics.

My own take is that Lieberman allowed himself to be painted as too close to President Bush, and he became too distant from his local roots, and he is the first victim of the growing power of the far left, anti-war, internet-driven activists who made him their most high profile target. I think this analysis, in the New York Times, explains pretty well what has happened inside the Democratic Party, although the conclusion is a bit muddled.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister of Lebanon has written this op-ed piece in the Washington Post today. Essentially, the Israelis are at fault for everything. To be fair to him, I doubt that any Arab politician can politically, if not physically, survive with any other point of view.

Finally, more speculation about the significance of August 22, which is the date the Iranian government has said it will reply to the offer concerning its nuclear program.

Lots of opinion about the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in the newspapers today. Here is a piece in the Boston Globe that argues Hezbollah cannot be negotiated with since they advocate the destruction of Israel and the genocide of the Jews. Here is another piece that questions Israel's strategy.

George Will questions their strategy, as well. Speed is a factor, and Ralph Peters, who is on the front line with the IDF, agrees.

Could the only way out for Israel be to expand the war? This piece makes that argument.

I am getting a little tired of the analysis that I am seeing on television. Too often, due to the constraints of the medium (if not the outright bias of the producers and talent), the debate is framed as to be one between those who want an immediate cease fire and negotiations versus those who want to keep up the bombing and loss of innocent life. I wish every such discussion were preceded by a recitation of Hezbollah's founding principles and a smattering of the pronouncements of their leaders. As an organization dedicated to the "liberation" of all Palestine based on the 1948 borders of the Palestinian mandate, that is, the destruction of Israel, and an organization that wishes to create an Islamic state on that land, in the mold of Iran, all subsequent discussion could then follow from that standpoint. Should Israel be required to negotiate with those who openly advocate their destruction? If so, what exactly should they negotiate about? The terms of Israeli surrender? Ridiculous.

It is primary day in Connecticut. Lots of opinion about the Lieberman-Lamont contest. Jesse Jackson thinks a Lieberman loss would be good for the Democratic Party. Barry Casselman disagrees. Could it be a preview for November?

If Lamont wins, the only thing we can take from that fact is that those Connecticut Democrats who bothered to vote on a Summer day were energized because of their anti-war views. This still does not tell us about the national mood of a much larger slice of the electorate in November. While it still looks like the Democrats will gain this Fall, we cannot know until the last week before the polls open. If Americans are still dissatisfied with the economy, the war, and politics in Washington, we could see the kind of anti-incumbent backlash we last saw in 1994.

Lots of opinion about the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in the newspapers today. Here is a piece in the Boston Globe that argues Hezbollah cannot be negotiated with since they advocate the destruction of Israel and the genocide of the Jews. Here is another piece that questions Israel's strategy.

George Will questions their strategy, as well. Speed is a factor, and Ralph Peters, who is on the front line with the IDF, agrees.

Could the only way out for Israel be to expand the war? This piece makes that argument.

I am getting a little tired of the analysis that I am seeing on television. Too often, due to the constraints of the medium (if not the outright bias of the producers and talent), the debate is framed as to be one between those who want an immediate cease fire and negotiations versus those who want to keep up the bombing and loss of innocent life. I wish every such discussion were preceded by a recitation of Hezbollah's founding principles and a smattering of the pronouncements of their leaders. As an organization dedicated to the "liberation" of all Palestine based on the 1948 borders of the Palestinian mandate, that is, the destruction of Israel, and an organization that wishes to create an Islamic state on that land, in the mold of Iran, all subsequent discussion could then follow from that standpoint. Should Israel be required to negotiate with those who openly advocate their destruction? If so, what exactly should they negotiate about? The terms of Israeli surrender? Ridiculous.

It is primary day in Connecticut. Lots of opinion about the Lieberman-Lamont contest. Jesse Jackson thinks a Lieberman loss would be good for the Democratic Party. Barry Casselman disagrees. Could it be a preview for November?

If Lamont wins, the only thing we can take from that fact is that those Connecticut Democrats who bothered to vote on a Summer day were energized because of their anti-war views. This still does not tell us about the national mood of a much larger slice of the electorate in November. While it still looks like the Democrats will gain this Fall, we cannot know until the last week before the polls open. If Americans are still dissatisfied with the economy, the war, and politics in Washington, we could see the kind of anti-incumbent backlash we last saw in 1994.

Byron York says John Conyers has a plan to impeach the President. I say, "bring it on". Nothing would be more effective at dividing and weakening the Democratic Party going into the 2008 election.

Is the West too civil to win a war? I think it may be the case, but it may also be that our government has, so far, been unwilling to impose the censorship and institute the propaganda necessary to keep up morale in the long and brutal fight that will be necessary to defeat the Islamofascists.

Is Joe Lieberman a dead man running? If so, he may not be the only one. Check out this article about some focus groups that are being run by American Research Group which ask New Hampshire voters what they think about Hillary Clinton.

Martin Peretz thinks the downfall of Joe Lieberman is a very bad sign for the Democratic Party, as it marks a return of the "peace wing".

...the contest in Connecticut tomorrow is about two views of the world. Mr. Lamont's view is that there are very few antagonists whom we cannot mollify or conciliate. Let's call this process by its correct name: appeasement. The Greenwich entrepreneur might call it "incentivization." Mr. Lieberman's view is that there are actually enemies who, intoxicated by millennial delusions, are not open to rational and reciprocal arbitration. Why should they be? After all, they inhabit a universe of inevitability, rather like Nazis and communists, but with a religious overgloss. Such armed doctrines, in Mr. Lieberman's view, need to be confronted and overwhelmed.

Read the whole thing.

Hezbollah continues to rain rockets down on northern Israel, and while these are unguided missiles, sometimes they exact a deadly toll. Public support for the war in Israel is beginning to wane under the assault, as Israelis are asking, with a great deal of justification, why their government and military seems unable to stop the barrage. The Israeli government, like their U.S. counterparts, has tried to wage war on the cheap. They have tried to use airpower to defeat a well dug in and resourceful enemy, which almost never works. They lost the initiative by their reliance on airpower, so now they will pay a higher price if they finally decide to unleash a more robust ground offensive to drive Hezbollah back.

Lebanon and Syria have already rejected a draft U.N. cease fire plan. It hardly seems relevant since Hezbollah has already said that it will not accept a cease fire until all Israeli troops leave Lebanon and the Israelis have said they will not leave Lebanon until an international force can enter to replace them. Wars typically do not end while one side or the other, or both, think they can still win through force of arms.

Meanwhile, Syria says it is getting ready for a wider war.

I expect the war to continue, and every day it goes on the chances go up that it will expand.

Walid Phares, himself a Lebanese, explains what is going on in Lebanon and how it relates to the global Islamist movement in this very revealing interview on the NRO website.

Tony Blair paints the big picture in such a way as to, I think, ensure that his speeches will be remembered as Churchill's speeches from the 1930s are remembered. Both this link and the above are courtesy of The Belmont Club, a site I highly recommend you visit regularly.

On a different subject, check out this analysis of the electoral picture as we progress through the dog days of August. It appears that the wave is building for the Democrats. They still have time to blow it, of course. But, right now, it appears as if they are riding a wave that could lead them to take over Congress in January.

Perhaps a Democratic takeover would not be such a bad thing. Sometimes, an orderly retreat to more defensible lines is the best strategy to win a war. I will have more thoughts on that in a future post.

Robert Spencer has a theory about the significance of the Iranian self-professed deadline of August 22 for replying to the incentive package regarding their nuclear program. I sure hope he is wrong. Thanks to the reader who alerted me to the article.

Victor Davis Hanson thinks we are living in the 1930s again.

Israeli forces are pounding Hezbollah positions in Lebanon, and they have attacked infrastructure in other parts of Beirut and the rest of the country. Will the expansion of the air attacks to other parts of Beirut elicit the response of a missile fired at Tel Aviv?

Iran is trying to re-supply Hezbollah, which is not a surprise.

Hezbollah has some Sunnis worried, although many are submerging those worries in order to show solidarity in the struggle against the Jews and the Americans.

Hezbollah says they will not accept a cease fire until all Israeli troops pull out of Lebanon. Perhaps, if the Israelis follow Ralph Peters' advice to fight harder, eventually Hezbollah will be so bloodied that they will re-think their position. If they do not, expect the war to go on a lot longer than people originally thought it would.

Meanwhile, President Ahmadinejad of Iran has the solution to the problem. He says the way to end all this mess is to put an end to the Zionist regime in Israel. Can we all just agree that we ought to really believe what he says, and structure our policies accordingly?

After firing over 200 rockets yesterday Hezbollah, with a smaller number of rockets, is having more success today in that they are killing more Jews. The continuing rocket attacks is drawing the ire of the editorial board of Ha'aretz, which wonders what their Prime Minister is talking about when he cites goals achieved during the war and yet the rockets still fall.

Meanwhile, Lebanese civilians continue to die. This is part of Hezbollah's plan, of course. Terrorize Israeli civilians with their rockets, so that the Israeli government is undermined and, eventually, the Jews begin to realize that they can never live in peace in the Middle East. Use civilians as human shields in Lebanon, so that world condemnation continues to be directed at Israel finally forcing, they hope, the Israelis to yield to a cease fire that leaves Hezbollah in being, on the field, with weapons in hand.

I am encouraged by the increased ground activity by the IDF, but I still wonder if the Israeli government has the staying power to fight this thing through to a successful conclusion, battling not just Hezbollah militarily, but much of the world politically, and their own home-grown leftists who will soon grow louder in their demands for a halt to the fighting.

As Israel sends troops deeper into Lebanon, and strikes in the Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah launches a fusillade of rockets at Northern Israel. I am hopeful that the Israeli government finally understands, after much fumbling around and too much reliance on airpower, that the way to win is to send troops on the ground deep into Lebanon to engage Hezbollah fighters. The upsurge in rocket attacks may very well be a last desperate gasp by Hezbollah. Even if it is not, eventually the Israelis will advance deep enough to put much of Israel, especially Haifa, beyond the range of most of the Hezbollah rockets. Once that is done, Israel can plausibly say that they have achieved their objectives, and then call for a cease fire.

Amir Taheri has an interesting analysis of the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. He believes this is a proxy war between the West and the Islamists, now clearly led by Iran.

This column in the Washington Times takes a similar view, comparing the conflict to the situation that existed in Spain in 1936, a preview of the wider war to come.

Is it 1914 or 1936? Is it the guns of August, or the Spanish Civil War? All historical comparisons are, of course, imperfect. The circumstances are never quite the same. It is 2006, and no one can know how events will play out in 2007, 2008, 2009 and so on. The rising tide of radical Islam may have crested, or it may be just beginning to come in. If history is any guide, however, one thing is certain. There will be war, and innocents will die along with the rest.

Is the weakness of the West now being revealed for all to see?

Israel is losing. Is that the canary keeling over? J.R. Dunn lists the mistakes, and they are legion.

The errors of this campaign will require months to work out, but here's the short list:

* Ohlmert, apparently one of the few prominent Israeli political leaders with no combat experience, refused to take advice from experienced officers and directly interfered with the set war plan.

* There's evidence of further micromanagement, particularly in the "siege of Bint Jibeil", which any competent commander would have masked and bypassed. It appears that the IDF was ordered to concentrate on the place, thus hitting the Hezbollah where they were strongest. It's a faulty strategy that has been tried before in other wars, at places like Verdun and Stalingrad.

* Announcing to Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, and the world at large what Israel was not going to do. At several points in the past weeks Israeli authorities told the world they were not going to move any deeper in Lebanon, not attack Syria, not duplicate their 1982 invasion, not advance on Beirut, etc., thus allowing the enemy to shift men and resources from these areas to where they were most needed. In1965, Lyndon Johnson said exactly the same thing about North Vietnam. He lived to regret it.

* Making an enormous public play about avoiding civilian casualties in a situation where they couldn't possibly be avoided, rather than putting the blame where it belonged.

* Continuing infrastructure strikes long after they stopped making tactical or strategic sense, guaranteeing the hatred and fury of the Lebanese, the people they have to work with to control Hezbollah. (Yet another bridge was struck on Saturday the 29th, days after the decision not to invade was made.)

* Depending on air power to do the job, attempted by such conquerors as LBJ, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. It worked for Bill in Serbia because everything works for Bill. It has never worked for anyone else.

Ralph Peters seems to agree with that assessment.

All efforts to make war easy, cheap or bloodless fail. If Israel's government - or our own - goes to war, our leaders must accept the price of winning. You can't measure out military force by teaspoons. Such naive efforts led to the morass in Iraq - and to the corpses of Qana.

Despite one failure after another, the myth of antiseptic techno-war, of immaculate victories through airpower, persists. The defense industry fosters it for profit, and the notion is seductive to politicians: a quick win without friendly casualties.

The problem is that it never works. Never.

Bret Stephens agrees.

Israel is losing this war.

This is not to say that it will lose the war, or that the war was unwinnable to start with. But if it keeps going as it is, Israel is headed for the greatest military humiliation in its history. During the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Israelis were stunned by their early reversals against Egypt and Syria, yet they eked out a victory over these two powerfully armed, Soviet-backed adversaries in 20 days. The conflict with Hezbollah--a 15,000-man militia chiefly armed with World War II-era Katyusha rockets--is now in its 21st day. So far, Israel has nothing to show for its efforts: no enemy territory gained, no enemy leaders killed, no abatement in the missile barrage that has sent a million Israelis from their homes and workplaces.

Generally speaking, wars are lost either militarily or politically. Israel is losing both ways. Two weeks ago, Israeli officials boasted they had destroyed 50% of Hezbollah's military capabilities and needed just 10 to 14 days to finish the job. Two days ago, after a record 140 Katyushas landed on Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice he needed another 10 to 14 days. When the war began, Israeli officials spoke of "breaking" Hezbollah; next of evicting Hezbollah from the border area; then of "degrading" Hezbollah's capabilities; now of establishing an effective multinational force that can police the border. Israel's goals are becoming less ambitious while the time it needs to accomplish them is growing longer.

The reason this is so distressing is that their war has melded into our war, as Charles Krauthammer points out.

Something radically new is emerging in the Middle East: the century-old Arab-Israeli dispute has been transmuted from a nationalist to a religious war. And as a result, the Arab-Israeli wars are now merging into the global conflict between radical Islam and the West.

The transformation was swift in coming. Hamas' electoral landslide in Palestine just six months ago marked the political death of Yasser Arafat and the secular, vaguely socialist and entirely nationalist movement he represented. Hamas is fighting not to create a 23rd Arab state but, as its charter explains, to recover "an Islamic Waqf." Meaning? Territory claimed under the Islamic precept that "any land the Muslims have conquered by force ... during the times of [Islamic] conquests" more than a millennium ago belongs to Muslims forever because "the Muslims consecrated these lands to Muslim generations until the Day of Judgment."

Krauthammer goes on to say that there are now two camps in the Islamist host, the Shiites led by Persian Iran and the Sunnis led by Arab Al Qaeda.

Michael Ledeen says it feels like we are living through the 1930s again, as a growing global menace is willfully ignored by the West.

Certainly there is lots of bad news, most of which confirms what we already knew: The Western world hates Israel; the taboo on anti-Semitism is off; the Western world has been P.C.’ed to the edge of death; there is no stomach for fighting the war against Islamic fascism.

Sounds like the Thirties to me.

I always have my doubts about “trends.” The history of 20th-century America is largely about a country that never prepared for war, and was always compelled — by our enemies — to conduct enormous crusades. It was seemingly all or nothing for us. The history of America in war, like that of most others, is largely about making enormous blunders at the beginning, and then sorting it out. Our great strength is not so much avoiding error, but the ability to recover quickly, change tactics and even strategy, and get it done. I think that applies to the three world wars in the last century.

The scary thing about our current jam is that 9/11 was supposed to have been the wakeup call, but we are again asleep. For this I blame our leaders — both the administration and the Dems. The administration is constitutionally unable to explain itself, and the Dems have no qualms about losing all present battles so long as they can elect their candidates and bring down this president.

It is all part of the weakness of the West. It is a weakness built upon the best of intentions. In the West, after centuries of bloodshed and suffering, we have created societies that are marvelous engines of economic prosperity, unprecedented medical advances, great progress in science and technology, all directed toward the elevation of the human condition. We are, as societies, wealthier and healthier than any societies that have ever existed in the history of mankind. And yet, the very things that make our lives easier have made us less spiritual and more selfish and self-centered. We find ourselves unable to withstand suffering, or even the prospect of suffering. We find ourselves unable to muster up the moral courage to defend our way of life and our civilization. We find ourselves unable to elect leaders who have the courage to ask of us the sacrifices necessary to make such a defense. We may very well be on the verge of creating a society so rich and so smug as be defenseless. If the Israelis, who we all thought were hardened by the very fact that they live in such a tough neighborhood, are unable to defend themselves against the likes of Hezbollah, is it not a certainty that the Europeans will be unable to defend themselves and, yes, even Americans?

I wish I knew the answers.