Bush's Choice

Presented with a crisis on the Israeli-Lebanese border in which the two pillars of his foreign policy -- fighting terror and spreading democracy -- were conspicuously at odds with each other, President Bush made it clear which pillar is dearest to his heart.

Bush is strongly supporting Israel's furious wave of attacks against Hezbollah and other targets in Lebanon, even going so far as single-handedly thwarting a humanitarian-based international consensus for a cease-fire.

But the cost to the fragile Lebanese government -- up until now, the greatest success story in Bush's push for democracy in the Middle East -- has been enormous.

"The country has been torn to shreds," Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told diplomats in Beirut on Wednesday. "Is this the price we pay for aspiring to build our democratic institutions? . . . You want to support the government of Lebanon? Let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, no government can survive on the ruins of a nation."

Interestingly enough, there might have been a way for Bush to be spared such a grim choice, having to pick one pillar over another. Conceivably, at least, if Bush had opened lines of communication with Hezbollah's patrons in Syria and Iran, he might have been able to, in the president's own immortal words, " stop this shit ."

The Bush White House has a long-standing aversion to engaging in dialogue with its enemies -- foreign or domestic. At least in part, that's based on an intense desire not to reward bad behavior. But the aversion to rewarding enemies by talking to them has not historically risen to the level of doctrine.

Overcoming that aversion would have been difficult for the White House, at least in the short term. But would it really have been more painful than watching one of its two central foreign policy pillars fall by the wayside?

The White House, of course, probably doesn't see the choice as starkly as that. The official line is that Israel's military action in Lebanon is actually tidying things up over there, strengthening the democratic government in the long run. Just like in Iraq.

But the Lebanese prime minister, who Bush welcomed so warmly to the White House just three months ago, certainly doesn't see it that way.

And as David Ignatius wrote in his Washington Post opinion column on Wednesday: "Rather than bringing positive change, military action in the Middle East tends to bring unanticipated consequences."

Bush's View

---

This past Tuesday, Bush offered an insight into his dispassionate analysis of the situation, saying: "Sometimes it requires tragic situations to help bring clarity in the international community."

Michael Abramowitz writes in The Washington Post today about how Bush's approach to the conflict is coldly calculating, how he thinks he's smarter than all those other world leaders, and how of course he could be dead wrong.