July 18, 2006

News about Bush's foul language at the G-8 Summit got disproportionate coverage, of course. If you want to get the U.S. press buzzing, get the President to swear, or fool around with an intern. Never mind the conflagration in Iraq. The more alarming part of the story was Bush's apparent boredom with the meeting of international leaders, his eagerness to go home, where he has "got something to do," and his apparent confusion about geography. 

Here's the leader of the free world speaking to President Hu Jintao of China:  "Where you going? Home? This is your neighborhood; it won't take you long to get home. . . . You get home in 8 hours? Me too! Russia is a big country, and you're a big country."

The era of cowboy diplomacy may be over, but we have two and a half more years of knucklehead diplomacy to go.

It would be funny if it weren't so terrifying. Remember, right after 9-11 when the big Republican talking point was "thank god the grown-ups are in charge"?

Doesn't have quite the same ring today.

But as terrorist violence and military reprisals worsen in Israel and Lebanon, and Americans feel less safe, a certain skepticism of the political motivations on all sides is some comfort.

Check out Al Jazeera and the poll question "Who do you think is mainly to blame for the current Middle East crisis?" Israel wins the race with 33% (no surprise, especially given the political leanings of Al Jazeera's readership). Hezbollah comes in second with 21%. Iran and Syria together get 19%, and the United States is tied with "all of the above" at 13% .

What's interesting is that 40% blame Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria, with a comparable 46% placing the blame on the usual fall guys, Israel and the United States.

On the flip side, Israelis are not all gung-ho for war. A moving column in Haaretz by journalist and Israeli Knesset member Yossi Sarid begs for a new, more measured approach: "Amid all the militant machismo, the voice of moderation must also be raised and heard, and it says now that force alone will simply not cut it. It is better for the ministers and officers to remember what Gaza did to us in the past 40 years and what Beirut did to us, and what Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan and Somalia did and are doing to powerful America - and to calm down. It is best to arrive at the crucial meetings calm and sober-eyed."

There is no shortage of analysis of the regional politics behind the current crisis--Iran's shadow role, Hezbollah's intransigence, Israel's lack of restraint. 

But despite Newsweek's alarming cover line: "Meltdown: what the widening war in the Middle East means for U.S. policy and the price of oil," it may be that there is no widening war.

The Bush Administration is, predictably, pursuing its one-sided policy of calling on Hezbollah and Hamas to make overtures for peace first--returning prisoners and ceasing violence. The more active policy preferred by Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary general, to send a multinational force to the region, Bush called "odd." But even Tony Blair supports active international efforts to end the conflict.

Bush no longer has the poll numbers within the United States, to sustain belligerent, nationalist posturing. A war-weary and terrorism-weary world is ready for better leadership.