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At the beginning of the week I was involved in an email debate with some friends about Lebanon and Israel. It ended rather whimpishly, saying that the humane response was to comment on the devastating effects of the war on Lebanon and not get too caught up in the geo-politics. I’ll admit that I was chief whimp.

But today, you can’t ignore the startling geo-politics of the fact that while almost the whole of the UN wants a ceasefire now in Lebanon the US doesn’t, so the US prevails. When the UN accuses Israel of deliberately attacking a UN post (2 days after Jan Egeland criticized Israel) the UN merely issues a policy document describing its ‘shock’ after the US stridently objected to Israel being criticized.

Although I make a connection there between Israel getting criticised by Jan and bombing the UN post, I'm not suggesting that they did it for that reason, although the reason remains deeply murky. However, I note with interest that the Israeli Ynet news says that Hezbollah were using it as a shield.

If the Guardian is correct and Blair is pushing the US administration to support a new resolution calling for a ceasefire than we can presume that it will fall on deaf ears. The US will decide how this conflict will pan out, no one else.

In 1991 George Bush snr declared a ‘New World Order’ during the First Gulf War. This week, while stating that the US would wait until Israel had finished before calling for a ceasefire Condi Rice talked about creating a ‘New Middle East’. In terms of International Law the invasion of Iraq was illegal. This action in the Middle East confirms to us that there is no such thing as International Law, only the will of US foreign policy.

However, lets for a moment admit that with US support Israel’s actions in Lebanon are going to go ahead no matter what, barring "a big blunder". There is a strategy in place and nothing will shift it. That strategy depends on seriously damaging Hezbollah, which can only mean diminishing them as a fighting force. The Guardian reports that “the US and Israel believe serious damage has been inflicted on Hizbullah, so the White House is ready to back a ceasefire resolution at the UN next week.” So far 600 Lebanese are dead, 30 of whom, according to Hezbullah, are their fighters and 15 belonging to Amal, another Shia group.

Clearly, the Israeli’s and the US know something we don’t, or else Hezbullah are seriously under estimating their casualty figures. Considering that there are Hezbollah in every village in the South, Israel may yet, as one General recently suggested, decide to simply raze every village in the South. Perhaps once they’ve done that, a cleansing of the zone, will the objectives of the war be achieved and a ceasefire would be put in place.