Signs of hope from the White House

From The Washington Post:

President Bush's unwillingness to pressure Israel to halt its military campaign in Lebanon is rooted in a view of the Middle East conflict that is sharply different from that of his predecessors.

In other words the President is not delusional, at least in this matter.

When hostilities have broken out in the past, the usual U.S. response has been an immediate and public bout of diplomacy aimed at a cease-fire, in the hopes of ensuring that the crisis would not escalate. This week, however, even in the face of growing international demands, the White House has studiously avoided any hint of impatience with Israel. While making it plain it wants civilian casualties limited, the administration is also content to see the Israelis inflict the maximum damage possible on Hezbollah.

And we see how wonderfully free of terrorism Israel has been under the old approach. Someone once said that the definition of insanity was repeating the same action but expecting a different result.

As the president's position is described by White House officials, Bush associates and outside Middle East experts, Bush believes that the status quo -- the presence in a sovereign country of a militant group with missiles capable of hitting a U.S. ally -- is unacceptable.

It is beyond tragic that this is considered controversial.

The U.S. position also reflects Bush's deepening belief that Israel is central to the broader campaign against terrorists and represents a shift away from a more traditional view that the United States plays an "honest broker's" role in the Middle East.

By playing "honest broker" we grant moral equivalence to the murdering savages. This approach does not actually elevate the savages. It only degrades us.

In the administration's view, the new conflict is not just a crisis to be managed. It is also an opportunity to seriously degrade a big threat in the region, just as Bush believes he is doing in Iraq. Israel's crippling of Hezbollah, officials also hope, would complete the work of building a functioning democracy in Lebanon and send a strong message to the Syrian and Iranian backers of Hezbollah.

Praise God! The President has a clue! Kill the terrorists and keep killing them until the entire Arab population has internalized the fact that terrorism has NO future and terrorism will stop. Legitimize the terrorists by negotiating with them, by signing treaties with them and you only guarantee more terrorism. Why shouldn't Hezbollah be doing what it is doing? It has worked in the past.

"The president believes that unless you address the root causes of the violence that has afflicted the Middle East, you cannot forge a lasting peace," said White House counselor Dan Bartlett. "He mourns the loss of every life. Yet out of this tragic development, he believes a moment of clarity has arrived."

The President needs to realize that the "root cause" of terrorism in the Middle East is Islam itself. The terrorists are practicing a form of Islam which is more true to the Koran than that form of Islam being practiced by the so-called moderates.

One former senior administration official said Bush is only emboldened by the pressure from U.N. officials and European leaders to lead a call for a cease-fire. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan demanded yesterday that the fighting in Lebanon stop.

The history of the post WWII world tells us that "UN officials" and "European leaders" belong to the school of the totally wrong. It is encouraging that Mr. Bush knows this.

"He thinks he is playing in a longer-term game than the tacticians," said the former official, who spoke anonymously so he could discuss his views candidly. "The tacticians would say: 'Get an immediate cease-fire. Deal first with the humanitarian factors.' The president would say: 'You have an opportunity to really grind down Hezbollah. Let's take it, even if there are other serious consequences that will have to be managed.' "

We will lose if we are not willing to do what must be done in order to win. It is just that simple. Hezbollah is a cancer which must be cut out. Godspeed to the Israelis as they go about their necessary task.

The rest of the Post story is mostly the predictable moonbat response from the usual rogue's gallery of Clinton era former officials.