In the war itself, meanwhile, our current policy has achieved new depths of senselessness. The administration is lining up support from our longtime Sunni allies in the region - Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt in particular - as a buffer against the spreading influence of Shiite Iran within Iraq and across the Middle East. Inside Iraq, meanwhile, we have cast our lot with the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a sectarian Shiite with long-standing ties to Iran, and hedged our bet by cultivating the support of another Shiite leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who is even closer to Iran. Hakim heads the Iranian-backed Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). His deputy, Adel Abdul Mahdi, was in the running to become prime minister until the head of SCIRI's rival Shiite party, Moqtada al-Sadr, threw his support to Maliki. According to a New York Times report on Sunday, some administration officials are discussing quietly shifting our backing to Hakim's party. Others oppose this, pointing out that the raid in which U.S. forces seized Iranian operatives in Baghdad last month took place within Hakim's own compound.


More broadly, our plan for stability in Iraq is to bolster whichever Shiite administration governs the country, no matter its closeness to Iran, in the groundless hope that it will establish nonsectarian order. Our plan for stability in the region is to enlist Sunni states to contain Iran. These plans cancel each other out.

In recent times, it has also become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who are just as hostile to America, and are also determined to dominate the Middle East. Many are known to take direction from the regime in Iran, which is funding and arming terrorists like Hezbollah - a group second only to al Qaeda in the American lives it has taken.

Did the administration expect Israel to attack Syria?

"They hoped Israel would do it. You cannot come to another country and order it to launch a war, but there was hope, and more than hope, that Israel would do the right thing. It would have served both the American and Israeli interests.

"The neocons are responsible for the fact that Israel got a lot of time and space… They believed that Israel should be allowed to win. A great part of it was the thought that Israel should fight against the real enemy, the one backing Hizbullah. It was obvious that it is impossible to fight directly against Iran, but the thought was that its strategic and important ally should be hit."

"It is difficult for Iran to export its Shiite revolution without joining Syria, which is the last nationalistic Arab country. If Israel had hit Syria, it would have been such a harsh blow for Iran, that it would have weakened it and changes the strategic map in the Middle East.

"The final outcome is that Israel did not do it. It fought the wrong war and lost. Instead of a strategic war that would serve Israel's objectives, as well as the US objectives in Iraq. If Syria had been defeated, the rebellion in Iraq would have ended."

Wurmser says that what most frustrates her is hearing people close to decision makers in Israel asking her if the US would have let Israel attack Syria.

"No one would have stopped you. It was an American interest. They would have applauded you. Think why you received so much time and space to operate. Rice was in the region and Israel embarrassed her with Qana, and still Israel got more time. Why aren't they reading the map correctly in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?"

In a series of secret meetings in Europe between September 2004 and July 2006, Syrians and Israelis formulated understandings for a peace agreement between Israel and Syria.


The main points of the understandings are as follows:


An agreement of principles will be signed between the two countries, and following the fulfillment of all commitments, a peace agreement will be signed.



As part of the agreement on principles, Israel will withdraw from the Golan Heights to the lines of 4 June, 1967. The timetable for the withdrawal remained open: Syria demanded the pullout be carried out over a five-year period, while Israel asked for the withdrawal to be spread out over 15 years.

When the war broke out it was widely assumed that given Israel's windy rhetoric about  stopping weapons supplies getting to Hezbollah it would attack Syria at some point, at very least by bombing the border. Instead Israel actually said publicly it would not attack Syria and reassured that its attention was on the Bekaa Valley, not the border while still railing about weapons supplies to its domestic audience. For its part, Syria was very, very careful not to take any action that could be construed as provocative, and its rhetoric was comparatively mild given the circumstances..

This confirmed to me my long held suspicion that a back door dialogue had been going on between the two.

It is possible the Americans did not know about this dialogue which was being conducted by low level representaives, as they were similarly kept in the dark about the Palestinian/Israeli dialogue that led to Oslo, described in interesting detail by Mahmoud Abbas in his book: Through Secret Channels: The Road to Oslo - Senior PLO Leader Abu Mazevi's Revealing Story of the Negotiations with Israel

Personally I think the Americans did know it was going on, but not the detail. I find it interesting that Condi Rice is forever saying "Syria knows what it has to do" when being pestered by media questions on the subject of opening US/Syrian dialogue. These matters involving momentous change for both sides are always kept out of the public eye - remember Kissingers visit to China? - until both sides have agreed to the deal.

It's quite possible Cheney knew it was going on, but if he did it would have been so classified he most certainly would not have discussed it with his staff or even given a hint of it, so it is likely that the Wurmsers would have been unaware of it and were just repeating Cheney's disinfomation.  

My analysis on what was going on with Israel's attack on Lebanon can be found here.

That was written BEFORE it became completely obvious to everyone that Israel had no hope whatever of accomplishing any of its declared goals and in particular that the result of the attack could only be to strengthen Hezbollah and weaken the illusions of the Israeli public about Israeli invincibility.

Although my predicted outcome of accepting Hezbollah demands (exchange of prisoners and withdrawal from Cheba farms area) has not yet been consummated I don't think that prediction is still controversial. Nor is it controversial that a prisoner exchange is being arranged in parallel with Hamas in Gaza, that international forces were deployed in south Lebanon with Hezbollah's consent rather than with a mandate to suppress Hezbollah etc.

There is a legal presumption that a sane person intends the natural consequences of their acts. Israeli defeat was a natural and expected consequence of attacking Lebanon when the Israeli government knew perfectly well that it had been driven out of south Lebanon six years earlier after 18 months of trying to occupy it and there was no support whatever in Israel for trying again.

Highlighting Israeli failure was a natural consequence of the US leaving them dangling instead of rushing to arrange a ceasefire as usual.

Nobody took the pretense that the Israeli government hoped to recover their prisoners by military operations in either Gaza or Lebanon seriously. Nobody who had a clue could believe their pretense that the attack would weaken Hezbollah. Nevertheless most people did take that seriously and saw its failure as a result of "mistake".

So my view is that the outcome was a natural consequence intended by Israeli and US decision makers.

I see nothing surprising about the fact that Israel did not attack Syria. Obviously they would have had to do so if they had a different objective in mind, but they didn't. Israel still wants a deal in which Syria returns to its traditional role of policing Lebanese and Palestinians on behalf of Israel, which would require Syrian occupation of Lebanon as supported by Israel and the US in the past. But they know that option isn't open because the current US government is opposed to Syrian intervention in Lebanon.

I also see nothing surprising about the fact that Meyrav Wurmser tells a very different story to an Israeli audience.

There is no point trying to decipher what she actually thinks and what was actually said to her or her husband. All we can analyse is what the perceived interests of the various forces are and what they would expect to be the outcomes of the actions they are considering.

What is clear is that the outcome is much greater clarity among Israelis that they have no option but to withdraw from the West Bank in agreement with the Palestinians and successful reversal of Israeli opposition to UN forces replacing Israeli occupation forces so that will be less "controversial" in the West Bank negotiations.

I agree with Cutler that Gerecht is far closer to actual US Government policy than is generally appreciated. As for Gerecht's calls for war with Iran (as opposed to supporting internal regime change there):

Well he would, wouldnt he?

The link I just provided includes only a 16 point summary of an earlier post with a link to that earlier post. Please be sure to read that earlier post (and several other comments I made in both those topics) to understand my position.

My comments there also included other links to related posts here which should likewise be followed (recursively ;-)

Arthur's 16 point Israel/US/Hezbollah/Lebanon analysis is just about the best I've read. I agree with it all, except for a quibble with point 9. 

Point 9. It is correct to say both Israel and US know that international forces can only be brought into Lebanon with Hezbollah's consent. However it is also correct that Hezbollah would have no reason to consent unless it was coerced into doing so. Similarly Hezbollah would have no reason to consent to the Lebanese army deploying in the south unless it was coerced. That was the "bottom line" purpose of the war, any Israeli rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, and it was successful.  Hezbollah was able to claim it had "defeated" Israel, but in fact if both sides were given the power to return to the pre July 06 position it would be Hezbollah who would turn back the clock, not Israel, as Nasrallah has all but admitted. Israel did not achieve its maximalist aims, but it achieved the most important of them.