Rice will back demands for ceasefire - after a few more days of carnage

By Simon Tisdall (THE GUARDIAN, 19/07/06):

The US game plan for Lebanon, if game plan is not too distasteful a word amid such daily carnage, is becoming clear: Israel has a few more days, possibly up to a week, to inflict maximum damage on Hizbullah. After that, and assuming there is no new major escalation involving Syria, Washington will begin to swing behind regional calls for a ceasefire and rebooted diplomacy.Condoleezza Rice is expected to travel to the region soon. But the US secretary of state is in no hurry. Her trip will not resemble the urgent shuttle diplomacy favoured in Middle East crises by predecessors James Baker and Warren Christopher. Her spokesman, Sean McCormack, says Ms Rice will first consult a UN team sent to Beirut and other capitals - but only after it returns to New York tomorrow.

Any US initiative on the ground is thus unlikely before next week. In any case, diplomats predict Ms Rice will not go unless and until the makings of a "peace formula" are in place. That is likely to be based around understandings on a future prisoner exchange, a Hizbullah pullback and Lebanese army deployments closer to the border, and Israel's acceptance of a beefed-up "international security monitoring presence".

France and others continue to push for an immediate end to the fighting. The French prime minister went to Beirut on Monday. But with the US and Britain sitting on their hands, little progress was possible, the diplomats said.

Ms Rice spelled out her delayed-action approach to peace-making at the G8 summit, when she questioned the need for an immediate ceasefire even if it saved lives on both sides. "Obviously a cessation of violence is going to be important. But you have to have a cessation of violence that moves this process forward," she told CBS television.

That meant disarming Hizbullah, she said. And it meant permanently changing the political facts on the ground in Lebanon, both longstanding Israeli objectives. Ms Rice's line has since been dutifully adopted by Margaret Beckett, Britain's greenhorn foreign secretary. But it has caused dismay elsewhere.

"It is clear at the UN, at the G8, and at the EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels that the US has used its influence to block calls for a ceasefire," a senior European official said yesterday. "It's also clear the Americans have given the Israelis the green light. They [the Israeli military attacks] will be allowed to go on longer, perhaps for another week. And this is what we absolutely have to stop."

Security sources said Israel knew there was a limit to how long it could resist pressure for a ceasefire. "They are trying to hit Hizbullah as much as possible before that happens," one said.

The senior official accused Tony Blair of aiding and abetting Washington's stealth policy in Lebanon at the expense of civilian lives, the EU and common sense. "Before this, we had a close consensus [on the Middle East peace process] among the European powers. That was partly [former foreign secretary] Jack Straw's doing. Now we don't have a united stand. And the G8 statement was pathetic. All the big powers were there. And nothing came out of it.

"After Iraq, Blair has almost no leverage in the Middle East. So he has leapt into America's arms. But you can see from their conversation [recorded at the G8] that George Bush has a very simple way of looking at things. He says Israel has been attacked and they have a right to defend themselves. It's all Hizbullah and Syria's fault. He thinks you can just send a message to Damascus and it's done. I tell you: it's not going to work. It's very dangerous."