[Having just read Thomas L. Friedman latest column, I hope it's not overheated or inaccurate to suggest that Friedman now qualifies for the Paul Joseph Goebbels Chair in Mass Communications based on his deft spinmeistery regarding Israel's war on Lebanon, viz.:]
... Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did a better job [directing the war], under the circumstances, than he is being credited with, and, more important, the situation evolving in south Lebanon now has the potential to offer a whole new model for peacemaking.
Regarding Mr. Olmert, this war was not easy to manage, because it was about everything and nothing. There was absolutely no reason for the Hezbollah attack on July 12 across the U.N.-recognized Israel-Lebanon border, in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two abducted. In that sense, the war was about nothing.
But precisely because it was about nothing, it was also about everything. If Hezbollah could just attack Israel — unprovoked — claiming among its goals the liberation of Jerusalem, and using missiles provided by an Iranian regime that says Israel should be wiped off the map, then it was a war about everything. And Israel had to respond resolutely.
So, gauging the right response was intrinsically hard. In the end, Mr. Olmert bombarded Hezbollah’s infrastructure, and, tragically but inevitably, the homes of Hezbollah’s Shiite followers, among whom Hezbollah fighters were embedded. ...
Carl