US neocons regroup

One-time Senior Adviser to former US President Bill Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal, writing in the Guardian Unlimited:

"Once again the Bush administration is floating on a wave of euphoria. Israel's offensive against Hizbullah in Lebanon has liberated the utopian strain of neoconservatism that had been traduced by Iraq's sectarian civil war. And the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, has propelled herself forward as chief cheerleader. "What we're seeing here," she said, "are the birth pangs of a new Middle East." At every press conference she repeats the phrase "a new Middle East" as though its incantation is magical."

Even if Blumenthal is half-right - and he seems to be - then the prognosis for US involvement in securing both a cease-fire in the Middle East as well as even some sort of resolution of the ongoing conflict, appears remote. Read the complete analysis of the US position as put forward by Blumenthal here.

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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