ZoneFlood

From the Los Angeles Times:

As the Bush administration seeks to negotiate a diplomatic end to the fighting in the Middle East, it finds it has a strikingly weak hand.

The war in Iraq, a halting U.S. response to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and now the prolonged fighting in Lebanon and Israel have led to intense anti-Americanism in the Arab world. Alliances with longtime Arab friends are strained. And the U.S. lacks relations with two key regional players: Iran and Syria.

The Bush administration may have badly miscalculated in insisting that any Mideast cease-fire be tied to long-term objectives. As the toll on Lebanese civilians has soared, even moderate Arab governments have turned into U.S. critics, and Hezbollah’s support has climbed across the region.

Bush’s most steadfast ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, joined the ranks of those expressing frustration after Israel’s Sunday bombing in the village of Qana that killed many civilians, most of them women and children. “We have to speed this whole process up,” Blair said. “This has got to stop and stop on both sides.”

Anger was brewing all across the Arab world as the U.N. Security Council prepared to take up the issue. Calls for an immediate cease-fire were coming from traditional U.S. allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.

Even the democratically elected prime minister of Lebanon, Fuad Saniora — whose leadership Bush often salutes — insisted that talk of a larger peace package must wait until the firing stops. “We will not negotiate until the Israeli war stops shedding the blood of innocent people,” said Saniora. 

And where Saniora initially was critical of Hezbollah, he is now praising the militant group and its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, for helping to defend Lebanon.

These haven’t been good days for Bush’s goal of spreading democracy through the Middle East.

[Associated Press | July 31, 2006]

From WorldNetDaily:

When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unleashed his navy and air force on Lebanon, accusing that tiny nation of an “act of war,” the last pillar of Bush’s Middle East policy collapsed.

First came capitulation on the Bush Doctrine, as Pyongyang and Tehran defied Bush’s dictum: The world’s worst regimes will not be allowed to acquire the world’s worst weapons. Then came suspension of the democracy crusade as Islamic militants exploited free elections to advance to power and office in Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Iraq and Iran.

Bush: Yo Blair How are you doing?
Blair: I’m just…
Bush: You’re leaving?
Blair: No, no, no not yet. On this trade thingy…[inaudible]
Bush: yeah I told that to the man
Blair: Are you planning to say that here or not?
Bush: If you want me to
Blair: Well, it’s just that if the discussion arises…
Bush: I just want some movement.
Blair: Yeah
Bush: Yesterday we didn’t see much movement
Read the rest of this entry »

From the New York Times:

Israel today held to three conditions it set for any ceasefire: the release of the two Israeli soldiers seized by Hezbollah in the cross-border raid on Wednesday that touched off the current fighting; a halt to rocket fire by Hezbollah; and a decision by the Lebanese government to implement a United Nations resolution calling for the disarmament of Hezbollah.

In New York, Nouhad Mahmoud, Lebanon’s ambassador to the United Nations, told the Security Council that Israel’s actions “were undermining the sovereignty’’ of his country.

Israel extended punishing airstrikes deeper inside Lebanon today, as President Bush rebuffed a Lebanese request that he push Israel for a cease-fire.

From Tim Grieve at Salon.com:

Cruising through the White House Web site earlier this month, we noticed a rather cryptic Memorandum for the Director National Intelligence. In the memorandum, dated May 5, 2006, and posted a few days later, George W. Bush delegated to John Negroponte “the function of the president under section 13(b)(3)(A) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (15 U.S.C. 78m(b)(3)(A)).”

We didn’t know what it meant, and — the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 not being our first choice for leisure reading — we didn’t take the time to find out. But Think Progress is connecting the dots this morning, and the picture that’s emerging is a pretty interesting one.

The Securities Exchange Act requires companies to “make and keep books, records, and accounts” which “accurately and fairly” reflect their transactions. But the Securities Exchange Act provision Bush cited in his memorandum waives that requirement for transactions involving national security in which a company has cooperated with the federal government after receiving a “directive” from a government official who has been authorized by the president to give one. In issuing his memorandum, Bush gave Negroponte the authority to issue such a directive.

What does that mean? It means that Negroponte now has the authority to free companies that cooperate with him from the obligation to record — and potentially reveal — the activities in which they’re engaged. And what does that mean? Negroponte now apparently has the power to allow the telephone companies that have been turning over telephone records to the NSA to keep their “transactions” — the payments they’re getting from the NSA — off of their books.

President Bush insisted Tuesday that the United States does not listen in on domestic telephone conversations among ordinary Americans. But he declined to specifically discuss the government’s alleged compiling of phone records, or whether it would amount to an invasion of privacy.

“We do not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval,” Bush said in an East Room news conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

[Associated Press | May 16, 2006]