So Bush made this supposed "gaffe" today when he swore in a private convo with Blair. But this gaffe might have been the smartest thing he ever said about the Middle East in the past 6 years. For those of you who missed it, Bush said:

“See, the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over."

I have no love for Dubya, but I sort of agree with him here. I'm not sure that there is irony involved, or maybe I don't know the context (I was always confused about the definition of irony, and that bloody Alanis Morissette song never helped matters). But everyone's been making a big deal here saying "Hezbollah is not Lebanon" and "Lebanon is not Hezbollah." True enough, and decimating the Lebanese civilian population, Shi'ite, Sunni, Christian or Druze, will not help matters. But people are forgetting a more important equation. Hezbollah is Syria, and Hezbollah is Iran. From a military point of view, striking Hezbollah targets makes sense, and mazel tov to the IAF for destroying an Iranian-made long-range missile today. But to stop Hezbollah, Israel's got to go to the source, and the source is Syria and Iran.

Now, some commentators have postulated that Israel wants the US to strike Iran, in order to prevent the Iranians from going nuclear, and possibly giving nukes to Hezbollah. If that doesn't happen, the IDF might do it on its own. Syria, however, sponsors not only Hezbollah but also Hamas, which though leading the Palestinian Authority right now, is a terrorist organization in its own right. Israel should negotiate with Hamas, should pull out of much of the West Bank and should make life easier for the Palestinians, ultimately leading to a Palestinian State. But Syria does not sponsor the charitable part of Hamas, they sponsor the militant part. Syria does not sponsor Hezbollah's political wing, they sponsor it's military branch. So Syria is a huge source of this mess. When they were forced to withdraw their troops from Lebanon, they maintained a presence in the country through intelligence operatives, and of course, through Hezbollah. Indeed, Hezbollah doesn't just "fill the power vacuum" that was caused when Syria withdrew, they simply represent a different force to act out Syria's interests.

Solutions? I don't know. Sometimes I feel that Israel should just withdraw from Sheeba Farms, release the prisoners and be done with it. But I'm not sure that's wise right now. Syria and Iran have to be dealt with. But how? And by who?

A lot of people don't realize how the Zionist project comes in to play here. Israel was birthed on a rejection of messianism, a do it yourself attitude. The model Sabra has disdain for the image (however, fabricated or accurate this is) of the "sheep to the slaughter" Diaspora Jew who fell pray to Hitler. So, he fights himself. He doesn't wait for US or UN intervention that may never come. An Eye for an Eye. He's hit, he hits back. And that's why Israel feels justified, almost invigorated, in responding to this unprovoked aggression by Hezbollah.

So should Israel strike Syria? I wouldn't be opposed to a strike on Syrian military targets at all.