Right out of the box, cease-fire seemed to be on Harry's mind: "We have Hezbollah content to fire rockets into Israel, just as we heard a couple of minutes ago from [CBS reporter] Sharyn Alfonsi. We have Israel intent on squashing Hezbollah. Is there any country in the world, any group of countries, for that matter, that can compel either side to stop?"
O'Hanlon didn't think so, noting that at this stage neither side shows the remotest interest in a cease fire.
Smith's secondary goal is apparently to keep the United States from going too directly to the aid of its ally Israel: "Iran is supplying rockets to Hezbollah. Even revolutionaries from Iran are said to be on the ground working with Hezbollah day by day. How does the United States stay out of this mess?"
O'Hanlon again gave a less-than-sanguine response: "It's a tough one."
Smith also wanted to know whether "the world will stand by and watch if Israel sends ground troops into Lebanon to really try and quash hezbollah town by town."
An equivocal O'Hanlon: "That's an open question."
O'Hanlon gets a certain kind of credit for not pretending to know too much!
Over at GMA, Charlie Gibson made the point that the g-8 leaders meeting in Russia "have not called for a cease-fire. That's surprised many people." And in an interview on the Today show, John McCain mentioned that, remarkably, a number of Arab countries have condemned Hezbollah. There are reports that some Arab countries are not-so-secretly hoping that Israel crushes the terror group.
But in Harry Smith's world of MSM moral relativism, are all sides equally blameworthy, the only solution being to stop the fighting and return to the deadly status quo?
