"The Rice doctrine" in thearters now! From the creators of the Iraq war 2, the Republican party's "utopian strain of neoconservatism" brings us the next failed state, Lebanon. The lead role played by nonother than Condoleezza Rice.

A review from Sidney Blumenthal:

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.

"[B]irth Pangs"? sounds to me like the "last throes"...

...
According to the Rice doctrine, the US has deserted its historic role as ultimate guarantor of Israel's security by acting as honest broker among all parties. Rather than emphasising the importance of Lebanese sovereignty, presumably a matter of concern to an administration that had made it exhibit A in the spread of democracy in "a new Middle East", Rice has downplayed or ignored it in favour of uncritical endorsement of Israel's offensive. Rice's trip is calculated to interpose the influence of the US to prevent a ceasefire and to give Israel at least another week of unimpeded military action.

OK, so our actions (ours and the actions of our proxy in Israel) are going to make things better, everybody will love America after this. How clueless are these people? Let's see...

To the Bush administration, the conflagration has appeared as deus ex machina to rescue it from the Iraqi quagmire. That this is patently absurd does not dawn on those who remain in thrall to the same pattern of thought that imagined the invasion of Iraq would be greeted with flowers in the streets of Baghdad. Denial is the basis of repetition.

Hit rewind, play it again!

Anyone care to consult the "Office of Lessons Learned" this week, or the week before? Naaa, that would make too much sense.