'A Moment of Opportunity'

"The United States is resolved to work with members of the United Nations Security Council to develop a resolution that will enable the region to have a sustainable peace, a peace that lasts, a peace that will enable mothers and fathers to raise their children in a hopeful world."

Here is White House spokesman Tony Snow in a quick briefing yesterday after the bombing:

"Q Well, does this attack hasten the development of diplomacy?

" MR. SNOW: No, because the diplomacy -- a lot of the things we're talking about, in terms of diplomacy, were underway before this -- I promise you -- so that there is still -- we have always thought that there was urgency in trying to get to the position where you can have sustainable peace precisely because innocent people, both in Lebanon and in Israel, have been affected by this and have been held hostage by the aggression of Hezbollah and we continue to urge restraint on the part of the Israelis.

"Obviously, you just have to have the qualifier today about the civilian deaths in Lebanon, it's something that is -- something for which everybody feels compassion."

The Coverage

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Baker writes in The Post: "The Israeli bombs that slammed into the Lebanese village of Qana yesterday did more than kill three dozen children and a score of adults. They struck at the core of U.S. foreign policy in the region and illustrated in heart-breaking images the enormous risks for Washington in the current Middle East crisis.

"With each new scene of carnage in southern Lebanon, outrage in the Arab world and Europe has intensified against Israel and its prime sponsor, raising the prospect of a backlash resulting in a new Middle East quagmire for the United States, according to regional specialists, diplomats and former U.S. officials. . . .

"Outside the White House, the mood among many foreign policy veterans in Washington is strikingly pessimistic," Baker writes.

Nevertheless, even when granted anonymity, senior administration officials apparently have their own view of things. As one official tells Baker: "Some of the overheated rhetoric about how the United States can't work with anybody, we've lost our leadership in the world, is just completely ridiculous, and this crisis proves it. . . . We are really indispensable to solving this crisis, and you're not going to solve this problem merely by passing another resolution."

Robin Wright writes in The Washington Post that Rice "denied that the United States bore any responsibility for not demanding an immediate cease-fire when most European and Arab allies did so several days ago. The administration, she said, was working harder than any other party to stop the violence. 'We are making real progress on a political framework and believe the parties are coming together on this aspect,' she told reporters. 'We are already doing really what is at the human limitation to try to get to an end of this conflict.' "

Newsweek's Christopher Dickey and Rod Nordland find at least two officials with doubts. They write: "Bush officials, who earlier had been confident the Iranian-backed militia could be crippled quickly by Israel's military, were 'freaked out' by Hizbullah's resilience, says one senior U.S. official who didn't want to be named expressing skepticism about policy. 'It is a very, very dangerous situation,' said another, who requested anonymity for the same reason. 'The more Hizbullah resists, and the more Israel hits back at them, the more open-ended this is.' "

About That Proxy War

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Doyle McManus writes in the Los Angeles Times, quoting a U.S. official who says that in Lebanon, the United States and Iran "are conducting a proxy war. . . . It is in our interest to see Hezbollah defeated."