This past week, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did a lot of “photo op” stops in Beirut, Jerusalem, Ramallah and Rome that demonstrated that the Bush administration is fully engaged in the latest conflict.

She marketed an old project with a new label called the “new Middle East”. The new American vision is serious and it is about creating a linkage between Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. President Bush referred to this emerging vision in a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. He lumped the war against all of these “terrorist” forces in the Middle East as one war between good and evil.

Of course, Israel and America stand on the side of “good” and people who oppose this will stand on the side of evil. The US and Israel are absolutely determined to crush “totalitarian” organizations in the new Middle East. There will be no resistance to the idea of Israel in their new Middle East.

President Bush threw Al-Qaeda, the Iraqi Baathists, Hezbollah and Hamas all in one basket. He called them “the enemies of democracy” — without mentioning that Hamas and Hezbollah were democratically elected — and claimed that they were only interested in creating totalitarian theocratic regimes in the Middle East. This large umbrella can provide Israel with international legitimacy to continue its ethnic-cleansing of Lebanon from the forces of “evil.” But the US administration is doing more than that. It is actually pushing Israel to score a clear military victory in Lebanon that it could not get in Iraq.

In the battlefield, Hezbollah has sustained more beating than anyone ever expected. Israel has never faced an Arab enemy like Hezbollah. In the 1967 war, Israel crushed Egypt, Jordan and Syria in less than 6 days.

So Rice went to the Middle East to sell the American-Israeli plan of disarming Hezbollah and occupying most of southern Lebanon by an international force. She armed herself with UN Resolution 1559, which called for Syria to withdraw from Lebanon — which it did last year — and for the disbanding of all militias. She wants the international community to hold Hezbollah down while Israel punches it to death.

America will agree to a cease-fire only when Hezbollah is ready to surrender. The conditions of this cease-fire will form the basis of a unilateral disengagement plan with Lebanon and Syria. Israel wants to eliminate the need for negotiated solutions with the Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians. The new game plan is to have its security guaranteed by United Nations resolutions.

In Beirut, Rice proposed the terms of this agreement to members of the Cedar Revolution, like Walid Jumblat and Amin Gemayel. They agreed that Hezbollah must be disarmed and that the southern half of Lebanon will become a buffer zone guaranteeing Israel’s security. Lebanese Speaker of the House, Nabih Berry, called it “a recipe for internal conflict and civil war.” But Americans know victory for Israel is not possible unless the unity of the Lebanese people is broken. It is the same story on the Palestinian front.

Rice accepted in essence the exchange of prisoners and the return of Shebaa farms to Lebanon. But she rejected point number one: An immediate cease-fire. Turkey and others accepted Rice’s argument as long as Hezbollah agreed to disarm voluntarily. This implied direct negotiations with Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, which Rice rejected. The new Middle East that she carries in her womb does not care about the interests of Syria or Iran, and does not negotiate with “terrorists”. She wants to give birth to a new Middle East that readily accepts and applauds unilateral disengagement plans conceived by Ehud Olmert.

Olmert’s plan is simple: Security buffer zones in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. These plans are perfectly suited for the Bush administration’s policy in the war on terror. The idea is to prevent real peace from ever taking root in the Middle East. No one holds the key to peace in the Middle East except the United States. History did not start two or three weeks ago when a couple of Israeli soldiers were captured.

The purpose of Rice’s trip was to tighten the grip on Hezbollah, within Lebanon and outside. She paved the way for an upcoming UN resolution that blames Hezbollah for the current war, calls for disarming it, and provides a mandate for the Israeli Army to invade and occupy southern Lebanon. The current thrust is to define to the world that Hezbollah is the problem and not Israel. Discussions at the UN will focus on these questions: Was Hezbollah justified in capturing the two Israeli soldiers? Was Hezbollah trying to save Hamas or did it have the interests of Lebanon at heart? Is Hezbollah to blame for the utter destruction of Lebanon?

All of a sudden Israel has become so keen on implementing the will of the international community as stated in Resolution 1559. What happened to all the other resolutions like 242, 338 and so many others that called on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories and to allow all refugees to return to their homes? How about deploying an international force in Gaza and the West Bank?

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa has the right idea. He called for declaring all peace initiatives in the Middle East as dead. He wants all the Arab countries to go back to the United Nations and simply ask for the implementation of the resolutions UN had passed on the Middle East conflict.

We are thankful for America’s humanitarian assistance to Lebanon. The US has already floated the idea of one billion dollars in reconstruction aid once this war ends. How about saving American taxpayers some money by sending fewer bombs to Israel!

We spent billions of dollars on missiles that destroyed Baghdad and now we’re wasting tens of billions more pretending to repair that damage.

We spent billions in building the Palestinian infrastructure and its authority and now we give billions to Israel in the form of bombs to destroy all of it. The Lebanese borrowed billions of dollars to rebuild their nation and now we rush laser-guided missiles to Israel to bring all these buildings down.

At this rate, when Rice is ready to give birth to the new Middle East, other Arab capitals like Damascus, Amman and Cairo will have followed in the glorious footsteps of Baghdad, Gaza and Beirut.

— Neal AbuNab is a Michigan-based author. A Palestinian-American, he can be reached at: www.IslamPalestineBlogger.com