We now know the truth why, last July the UK and the USA were so against the call for a cease-fire when Israel responded to Hezbollah's kidnapping of a couple of IDF soldiers. Nothing of this was mentioned at the time. But this morning on the Today Programme, John Bolton, then US ambassador to the UN confirmed what was suspected, though never formally admitted at the time, that the US simply wanted to give Israel time to destroy Hezbollah.
So, when on July 19th, a few days after Israel's action in self defence began, Condoleezza Rice said that a ceasefire could only occur when conditions "were conducive to do so" that was diplo-speak to allow Israel a few weeks to bomb the hell out of Hezbollah. And bombing Hezbollah's stronghold in the south of Lebanon meant that many civilians would be killed. And when Blair was asked to support the call for a cease-fire, he rejected it. He claimed that this was to attempt to get a UN Resolution to back up the cease-fire. But it's difficult not to view this as prevarication to allow Washington's policy, now explained by Bolton, time to work.
And listening to Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells wittering on about never hearing the US policy of "let the Israelis off the leash" , is frankly preposterous.
Looking back, what it truly ironic is how both the US and UK were completely fooled by Israeli government's overstating the ability of the IDF to complete the job on Hezbollah.
A bit like how the US was bamboozled by the fraudster Chalabi into believing that the Iraqi invasion would be a cake-walk.
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