Don’t Blame Bush

Jacob Weisberg, writing in Slate, explains why the situation in Lebanon cannot be blamed on Bush, despite all the attempts to do so. He's right, those pointing the fingers neglect all the past failures. They neglect that this situation has continued down it's same, sad path for longer than I have been alive. Nothing has worked, nothing has solved the problems.

We don't really know why Hezbollah chose the moment it did to end this fragile truce by launching a raid that killed three Israeli soldiers and resulted in the kidnapping of two others. Was it acting out of rivalry or solidarity with Hamas' preceding attack from Gaza? Did Iran, which is Hezbollah's chief sponsor, order the attack or merely enable and encourage it? We don't know whether Syria, which is the chief backer of Hamas, was a planner or merely a conduit for Hezbollah's Iranian weapons. Nor can we say with much assurance whether the Lebanese government, which includes significant Hezbollah representation, allowed terrorists to rule the south because of weakness or sympathy.

We do know enough, however, to divide responsibility for the current war among these players: Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. This has not stopped many analysts in Europe and the United States from laying blame for the violence squarely at a less obvious doorstep—that of the Bush administration.

The real fault here lies with the ones who have provoked this war, not those who responded to the provocation. You really need to read all this piece. Weisberg does a good job of dismantling the attempts to lay blame at Bush's feet point by point.