Oh so predictable

France et al played Bush and Rice for chumps at the UN in getting Israel to stop its legitimate war on Hezbollah in Lebanon. I knew this was coming, and here it is:

Resolve Is Eroding in Face of Call to Disarm Hezbollah [NY Sun]

The nutshell version:

Step 1: Make big, manly talk in UN Security Council meetings and private diplomatic channels to dupe American officials into thinking the rest of them (France et al) are serious about de-clawing Hezbollah after the cease-fire. America agrees to back a cease-fire resolution.

Step 2: Get Israel to stop its legitimate war to de-claw Hezbollah by announcing cease-fire resolution and putting major pressure on Israel to abide by it.

Step 3: Once Israel stops shooting and pulls back, hem and haw and drag feet about ACTUALLY de-clawing Hezbollah.

Step 4: Allow Hezbollah to pick right up where they left off.

If this pattern can be seen coming from a long way off by a nobody like me, I'm left to conclude that Bush and Rice also saw this coming and went along with it for reasons of their own. It has been suggested that perhaps agreeing to the cease-fire will give Israel more of a leg to stand on when the next inevitable thing happens - Hezbollah isn't disarmed and continues trying to kill Israelis, and Israel once again invades Southern Lebanon to take them out. Then Israel can claim they tried it the UN's way and it didn't work.

You can't possibly believe Hezbollah will voluntarily stop attacking Israel for long, so this scenario is virtually a foregone conclusion. Maybe Round 2 of the Israel-Hezbollah War in Lebanon will feature direct support from the United States.

And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.