Let’s take stock. Who’s pleased with the way things are going in the Middle East? After the IDF allegedly killed at least 57 Lebanese civilians in Qana over the weekend, including 37 children, a lot of people in Lebanon certainly aren’t very pleased. The citizens of Bint Jbeil don’t seem pleased that their city has been bombed into rubble and is “no longer a place of the modern world.” On the other hand, according to the Financial Times, neoconservatives are extremely pleased with all this, and back in the Bush administration’s corner after a spate of dissatisfaction earlier this year:
Neo-conservative criticism [of the Bush administration] reached a peak after Ms Rice, secretary of state, offered conditional talks to Iran in late May on its nuclear programme. But their attacks on Mr Bush ceased after 12 July, when Israel launched its military campaign against Hizbollah.
“This is exactly the right strategy, which you could call ‘Don’t just do something, stand there [while Israel continues its military campaign]’,” said David Frum, a former speechwriter to George W. Bush, who helped draft the president’s 2002 ‘Axis of Evil’ address.
Well as long as a former speechwriter sitting comfortably at his phone far away from the carnage is pleased, things must be going well, no?