Secretary Rice is heading to Israel on Sunday. She says her goal is to effect real, fundamental change in the region, not just return it to the status quo (which for the US would mean ignoring it again?). She may be going for diplomacy but she’s also being sent like a stripper in a cake to the Israeli military. Instead of a cardboard cake and some nipple tassels, though, the Israelis are getting precision missiles and an awkward academic.

The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said.

The expedited delivery coupled with the administration’s slow response, tacit approval of ongoing bombing, and Rice’s refusal to “shuttle” to Arab capitals stinks of a proxy war.

In what is one of the biggest understatements that the Times has made recently, reporter David Cloud says that the rushed delivery “threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.” Actually, the question isn’t whether there is an “appearance” that we’re bombing Lebanon through Israel but rather what our proxy war means. Cloud’s statement sums it up nicely: this is a war on Iran.

Call Seymour Hersch because this is the air war he predicted last year. I can only imagine what kind of “incentives” Rice will be offering Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah. I assume one incentive will be free heating for the entire country from Israeli/American explosives. Another could be a complete ceding of internal police power to an intrusive Israeli/American anti-terror campaign. Another might be letting Israel use its roads to attack Iran. The writing is on the wall: the willingness of the administration to support Israel’s military campaign means that this situation is a new front in the war on terror. Bombs are being used for democracy again.

Not that we are surprised. An opportunity to attack terror with violence instead of soft power is rarely lost on this administration. I do, however, find it interesting that the US is being so transparent. What kind of proxy war are we fighting here? Do we really want to broadcast how badly we want American-made munitions and bombs to be dropped on the Middle East? Does Rice really need to be in the papers vocally rejecting working with Middle Eastern governments on respectful grounds? This is the biggest case of dick swinging diplomacy since Iraq and it appears that we haven’t learned our lesson.

Rice the diplomatic, arms-dealing stripper sucks. She doesn’t understand the subtleties of the striptease and how effective it can be. So off she goes tomorrow to assert a vision for a terror-free pile of rubble. She expects Middle Eastern countries to sign on to more bombing for their own good. She expects to succeed where countless others have failed by skipping right past deterrence and incentives and onto big stick diplomacy. I’ll be interested to see what she wears–dare I expect a horse whip?


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