Annan underscored that the new force would have "different capabilities" from the present UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), appearing to suggest a much more powerful military presence.
He expected European and other countries to supply troops for the force, saying "it is urgent that the international community acts to make a difference on the ground."

Standing next to Annan at a news conference, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said: "We are ready to help."

Several EU nations have said they were ready to contribute forces to a Lebanon stabilization force if the U.N. Security Council agreed to form one.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair first mentioned such a force at the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia on Monday as the only way to achieve a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

By early Wednesday, at least 237 people had been killed in Lebanon and 25 in Israel since fighting broke out July 12 between Israeli forces and Hezbollah guerrillas following its capture of two Israeli soldiers.

Beirut and southern Lebanon in particular have suffered punishing raids by the Israeli air force. Some half-a-million people have been displaced.

Annan said earlier that Vijay Nambiar, his special political adviser, who had reported "constructive" talks with the Lebanese leadership in Beirut, planned to go to Israel Tuesday and then "possibly go back to Lebanon" and on to Damascus, Syria, in efforts to "find a way of getting the parties to end the hostilities."

In the meantime, the AL was trying to win the support of more Arab nations to call an emergency summit to deal with the crisis which threatens the wider security of the region.

The idea of holding such a summit was proposed by Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh on July 12, shortly after the Israeli army and the Hezbollah guerilla group clashed in the border area.

Up to now, eight AL members have showed their readiness to attend the proposed summit, namely, Egypt, Sudan, Algeria, Yemen, Qatar, Lebanon, Djibouti and the Palestinians, but the number remains short of the necessary majority of two thirds of the 22 league members.

AL Secretary-General Amr Moussa said in a statement on Monday that the Middle East peace process had failed and it was important to refer the whole Middle East crisis to the UN Security Council.

Moussa said the Arabs were not seeking a UN Security Council draft resolution or statements, instead, the Arabs would like the Security Council to have a clear and accurate political review of all the regional issues.

Tensions in the Middle East have been dramatically heightened as Israel has pressed ahead with a massive assault in Lebanon since July 12 and continued a three-week-old offensive in the GazaStrip.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora pleaded on Tuesday for the international community to organize an immediate ceasefire, accusing Israel of massacres and wanting to blast his country "back 50 years."

In a statement, he "implored the international community and the Arab countries to work toward installing an immediate ceasefire" to end Israel's week-old offensive against Lebanon.

The Syrian cabinet emphasized on Tuesday its readiness in all fields to face all future scenarios as Israel continued to bomb neighboring Lebanon for the seventh day.

Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Ottri underlined "the importance of coordination and integration of government performance" to upgrade the state of readiness in all sectors in order to "face all prospects in the future", the official SANA news agency reported.

Chairing a weekly cabinet meeting, the premier hailed the steadfastness of the national resistance in Lebanon and its qualitative operations that had inflicted grave loss on the Jewish state.

Egypt called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.

"Israel will not emerge as a victor in this war. It will only create more enemies," said President Hosni Mubarak. "The war will only inflame Arab animosity toward Israel, many anti-Israel extremist forces will surface and Israel will find itself the loser rather than the victor in this war."

While warning Israel against more military operations, Mubarak also cautioned that other countries should resort to "wise judgment" in light of the conflict.

Shortly after the Israeli-Hezbollah clashes on the border area on Wednesday, Mubarak made phone calls to or met face-to-face with leaders of Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Bahrain to discuss the conflict.

Egypt, one of the only two Arab countries to have a peace treaty with Israel, has long played the role of mediator in regional problems, especially in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

French President Jacques Chirac on Tuesday called for maximum humanitarian aid to be brought to Lebanon.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday called for calm in the Middle East.

"The main thing now is to stop the worsening of the conflict, [to] not allow extremists to bring chaos to the region, and to prevent a wider conflict," Putin told a press conference at the end of the three-day G-8 summit.

The Russian president urged the return of the two Israeli soldiers, saying "we would very much like to see the speedy return of the kidnapped and a stop to the bloodshed."

"But I am also not confident that the return of soldiers will stop the conflict," said the G8 summit host.

As world leaders tried frantically to use their influence to try to avert an all-out war in the Middle East, U.S. President George W. Bush was moving with care.

The Bush administration is trying to drum up diplomatic support for a so-called ceasefire of "lasting value," that is, where the Lebanese army takes control of the south and disarms the Hezbollah militia.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has conferred by phone with Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and at the State Department with Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit of Egypt.

She will probably travel to the area this weekend, but there has been no announcement.

Israel did not rule out negotiations, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to continue operations in Lebanon until Hezbollah returned the two captured Israeli soldiers, stopped rocket attacks on Israel and pulled back from the borders that Lebanon shares with his nation.

"The only way of resolving the Middle East conflict is by political and diplomatic means," Sergei Ivanov told journalists in reply to a question on whether Russian peacekeepers might be sent to the area. "I do not see any other option."

Ivanov, who is also a deputy prime minister, said the issue of peacekeeping could only be discussed after both conflicting sides agreed to the idea.

"The UN Security Council will within the next few days or even hours adopt a resolution, but we can only start talking about peacekeepers when both parties to the conflict have given their consent," he said, echoing a position voiced by the Russian leadership over the last few days.

"Otherwise the presence of peacekeepers is pointless," Ivanov said.

The military conflict was sparked last week by the killing of eight Israeli soldiers and the abduction of two others by militants from the Islamist group Hizbollah, based in Lebanon. Israel has since been hitting Hizbollah sites to secure the release of the captured soldiers. Hizbollah has been firing rockets into Israeli territory in response.

Primakov said Israel's actions in Lebanon had gone "beyond the scope of a purely anti-terrorist operation" because it was destroying the country's infrastructure - not just that of Hizbollah - and its air raids had claimed many civilian lives.

"It is unsettling that our Western partners have started the evacuation of civilians [from Lebanon]," he said. "Everyone expects an all-out war."

Primakov also voiced alarm at Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's allegations that Iran had provoked the hostilities to divert world leaders' attention from its controversial nuclear program during last weekend's Group of Eight summit near St. Petersburg.

"There is a dangerous trend toward escalation behind Olmert's statements," he said.

According to Primakov, one other factor likely to aggravate the Israeli-Arab conflict is the U.S.-led coalition's latest operation in Iraq, which he believes has deepened a communal divide between the Sunni and the Shi'ite Muslims.

But he said he was quite optimistic about Lebanon's ability to recover.

"I know that Lebanon, where I worked as a correspondent, can rise from the ashes like a Phoenix," he said. "The Lebanese are a special breed of people; they are very practically-minded, they love their country and can do quite a lot [for it]. But for now the imperative is to end the war."

But the negotiations should be "on the condition the hostages are returned and UN resolution 1559 is enforced," Olmert said in a meeting with heads of about 60 regional councils in northern Israel, Israeli Channel 10 TV reported.

Resolution 1559 called for the deployment of the Lebanese army along the border with Israel and disarming Hezbollah. Olmert hinted that it was premature to discuss the stationing of international peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon as suggested by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

He also pointed out that Hezbollah's operation was coordinated with Iran and was aimed at drawing the international attention from Iran.

Earlier on Tuesday, Olmert said Israel would continue a seven-day-old massive assault in Lebanon until two Israeli soldiers taken hostage by Lebanon's Hezbollah guerillas were released and rocket attacks on Israel stopped.

A senior military source said on Tuesday that Israel seeks "to significantly weaken Hezbollah but not crush it." He said that "it is impossible to crush a popular, religious movement."

The source added that had the government of Israel reacted differently to the abduction of three soldiers in an attack on Har Dov in October 2000 and behaved as Israel is doing now, it is likely that the attack last Wednesday could have been prevented.

Some IDF ground troops crossed into southern Lebanon on Wednesday to carry out attacks on Hezbollah guerrilla outposts.

"These are restricted, pinpoint attacks," an IDF spokesman said. "This is not out of the ordinary. This has been happening close to the border."

IDF troops have crossed into southern Lebanon several times in recent days to destroy Hezbollah posts, returning soon afterwards. The army has not ruled out the possibility of a major land offensive at some stage.

Assessments vary within the IDF regarding the effect that the assault on Hezbollah is having on the organization's morale, but Chief of Staff Dan Halutz is among those officers who believe that the first signs of cracks in the group are evident.

In Lebanon, reports claimed more than 35 people dead, most of them civilians, on Tuesday. The IDF instructed the residents of 28 villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate their homes and warned them of "accurate fire" against Hezbollah targets.

IDF estimates hold that some 60,000 Lebanese civilians have fled the south while many others have taken refuge in mosques in villages that Israel has said it would not attack.

Head of Operations at the General Staff, Major General Gadi Eisenkot, said on Tuesday that Israel views Syrian efforts to replenish Hezbollah armaments as a "grave" development, but does not intend to attack it or the Lebanese army.

He added that that "over the course of the last 24 hours, very successful attacks have continued, especially those of the air force but also other units, by land and by sea, in Lebanon."

"Until now, over 1,000 terrorist targets have been attacked, including 180 Katyusha and long-range rocket launch sites," Eisencott said.

Defense sources said on Tuesday that in the coming days action would also be taken to further damage the infrastructure of Hezbollah. The sources refused to offer details.

A day's fighting in the north is estimated to cost more than NIS 50 million.

Peretz instructed the IDF to enable as many factories as possible along the northern border to reopen so that damage to the economy can be minimized.

The Home Front Command will decide which factories have the necessary reinforcement to protect workers from possible rocket strikes.

Lebanese death toll rises to 260

At least 10 civilians were killed when Israel Air Force aircraft bombed a street in a south Lebanon village on Wednesday, residents said.

They said more people were feared buried under the rubble of about 10 houses flattened by the strike on the village of Srifa.

Israel Air Force missiles continued hitting towns to the east and south of Lebanon's capital, as five big explosions reverberated over Beirut early Wednesday. At least 11 other people were killed in overnight air strikes on these areas, security sources said.

The death toll since the start of the IDF military campaign in Lebanon has risen to 260, the majority of the casualties being civilians.

The explosions appeared to be from hits in Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold badly devastated since Israel launched its military blitz against Lebanon last week.

In separate attacks, missiles also hit Chuweifat - a coastal town where several factories are located, just south of the capital, near the airport - and Hadath, a mainly Christian town just east of Beirut, local television said.

IAF warplanes also struck a bridge in the southern city of Sidon and houses in two other southern villages, local media reported. There was no immediate word on casualties in any of the air strikes.

IAF warplanes killed on Tuesday 35 Lebanese, including 13 civilians - all of them members of two families - and 14 soldiers. An armed Hezbollah operative and the driver of a truck carrying humanitarian supplies were also killed in Tuesday's raids.

As of dusk Tuesday, the State Department had helped about 350 Americans flee the country. Others had found their own way out, so it was difficult to determine how many of the estimated 25,000 Americans there remained, said Maura Harty, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs.

Monday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the government would charge evacuees commercial rates to take them out by plane or boat.

"It's not an excessive rate. It's a rate that they might pay for a regular airline flight out or a ship leaving Beirut," McCormack told MSNBC.

Harty said she understood people were irked by having to pay for their evacuations to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, about 100 miles northwest, but that a 1956 law requires that the State Department be reimbursed. Those who can't afford it can sign a promissory note and pay later, she said.

"No U.S. citizen will not be boarded because they left their checkbook or credit card at home," Harty said. "I need to get people out of harm's way first, and that's what we're going to do."

The State Department has arranged for six CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters, which collectively can ferry about 300 passengers a day, and two commercial cruise ships, which can carry about 2,200 total passengers, to help in the evacuation effort.

The helicopters are reserved primarily for medical emergencies and were used Tuesday to airlift about 60 of the most vulnerable people from the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, the embassy said.

The cruise ships, one of which already was docked in Beirut on Tuesday night, will depart for Cyprus on Wednesday, Harty said. The State Department has said the U.S. military will escort the ships.

However, the idea that Americans would have to pay to board one of the ships is drawing the ire of stranded Americans and their politicians and families back home.

Atlanta resident Maya Nessouli, whose mother, brother and sisters are in Beirut, wrote CNN and said she is disgusted by the government's policy.

"The government wants $3,000 per person for the helicopter to Cyprus and you're not allowed to take any of your stuff with you. Once they get to Cyprus, they'll have to pay an exorbitant amount to find flights out," Nessouli wrote.

Nessouli called CNN later to say that her family had rented a car for $1,500 and drove all night through Syria to Jordan, where they're now trying to find a flight back to the United States.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Washington has an obligation to evacuate citizens without "quibbling over payment."

"A nation that can provide more than $300 billion for a war in Iraq can provide the money to get its people out of Lebanon," the California Democrat said in a statement. "I call upon the president to remove one worry from the minds of stranded American citizens in Lebanon and their families back home by declaring immediately that their country will bear the costs of bringing them to safety."

Another Democrat, Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan said she is introducing legislation authorizing the secretary of state to waive the fees if it would create a financial hardship or if the evacuee "would be unable to recoup the cost of or reuse a previously purchased airline ticket."

"We must not abandon American citizens in a war zone," she said. "Our government should be focusing on the fastest, safest way to get Americans home, not how much to bill them once they get there."

Stuck in Lebanon

Several of the Americans in Lebanon have written e-mails to CNN, expressing their frustration with the evacuation process.

"We are desperately trying to evacuate and have become more and more disappointed and angry with the way the evacuation is being handled," said Lina Fleihan, of Greensboro, North Carolina. "We hear more about what's going on from CNN than we do from the U.S. government and the American Embassy here."

Natalie Kerlakian of Denver, Colorado, wrote that she has not heard from the embassy in a week.

"I hope this response will be better than that of Katrina," she wrote, referring to the heavily criticized government response to the hurricane that struck the Gulf Coast in August.

Susan Omar, of Clifton, New Jersey, wrote that she has family stuck in the southern Lebanese city of Maryajoun, and her phone calls to various governments' offices have been fruitless.

"We have begged and pleaded with anyone and everyone, but our kids still don't have water, food or medicine," she wrote. "The media is telling everyone that those with medical necessity have already been evacuated. I guess that only means those lucky enough to be near Beirut!"

Kellee Khalil of Los Angeles, California, wrote that she was trapped in Lebanon while vacationing with her father, who has diabetes and a heart condition.

"The embassy has not put him on a priority list," he wrote. "It has been several days of airstrikes and the United States seems to care little about the 25,000 Americans that are trapped here."

However, the U.S. State Department has warned Americans against traveling in Lebanon for the past several years. The Web site for the U.S. Embassy in Beirut reminds travelers "that the U.S. government does not provide no-cost transportation but does have the authority to provide repatriation loans to those in financial need."

The embassy issued a statement Tuesday saying that Americans were being contacted about departing Lebanon via sea and air. The statement added that Americans should not move until contacted by the embassy staff.

"Those who wish to leave should ready themselves immediately," it said.

The U.S. military does not charge for evacuations. Nor do the governments of France, Ireland, Britain and Italy, which already have ferried hundreds of their citizens out of Lebanon.

Help on the way

In addition to the warships and helicopters, nine U.S. Navy ships have arrived in Lebanon to help with the evacuations, as well as ships from the Spain, Italy and Britain, said Brig. Gen. Mike Barbero. The Pentagon said Tuesday that the destroyer USS Gonzales will escort one of the cruise ships.

"These operations are taking place in a war zone," Barbero said. "They involve passage through a strict blockade and are limited by the capacity of the ports and the degraded infrastructure in Lebanon."

Many Americans were already aboard one of the cruise ships Tuesday, said Nicholas Burns, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs.

Video footage from the U.S. Defense Department also showed women and children boarding a military helicopter on what appeared to be a building's rooftop.

More than 100 Europeans and Americans joined at least 800 French citizens on one of the few vessels to arrive in Lebanon to carry evacuees to Cyprus. From there, people were flying to their home countries.

The ferry docked Tuesday in the Cypriot port of Larnaca and is to return to Beirut on Wednesday and again later in the week to evacuate others if the French military deems it safe, the French Foreign Ministry said.

Burns called the evacuation effort well-conceived and methodical.

"People go out when they want to go out," he said. "We have an open line to all American citizens. We're in touch with them by Web site. Those Americans who wish to leave will obviously go out. Those who are in critical need of leaving over the weekend have left through the air bridge."

You see them checking into Larnaca's beachfront hotels tired, frustrated, and a little stunned at what they've been through.

I just finished interviewing one American woman with three young children. The kids were bouncing on the bed of their hotel room, oblivious to the nightmare they just escaped.

Their mother was lucky. She was able to get a spot on a Marine Corps chopper and has a ticket back to New York in a few hours.

"I don't know how they are going to get all those people out," she told me.

The United States has a number of ships en route and chopper flights will continue, but getting people out means crossing a logistical minefield.

Another ship may arrive with more evacuees tonight while we are on the air, but it's hard to predict exact arrival times.

We will bring you the latest tonight on the evacuations. We'll also check-in with CNN correspondents for the latest news from Lebanon, Israel, Syria and the rest of the region.

As for tomorrow, there's no telling where we will be. This is a fast-moving story and we are trying to bring it to you from as many angles as possible.

I'm curious to hear your perspective. Do you think what Israel is doing is legitimate? Should the United States push for a ceasefire? Or is the Bush administration's current approach appropriate?

The Senate resolution urges the President to use all "political and diplomatic means" including sanctions to help end the support by Iran and Syria to Hezbollah and Hamas, and calls upon the Lebanese government to fulfill its responsibility to disarm Hezbollah.

The resolution also urges the UN to demand compliance with Security Council resolution 1559, and to condemn the "unprovoked acts" of Hezbollah.

Hillary Clinton rallies for Israel

Speaking at a large demonstration in support of Israel in Manhattan on Monday, United States Senator Hillary Clinton expressed unreserved support for Israel and commended President George Bush for his stance in the present crisis.

Clinton said on Monday that all Americans, whether Democrats or Republicans, stood behind Israel at this time.

The demonstration, which drew an estimated 5,000 people, was described as one of the largest Jewish events in recent years.

Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel also spoke at the gathering, which ended in a call to free the captured soldiers.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people, many of them holding Lebanese flags, marched Monday night in Rome to protest the escalation of fighting in the Middle East, while a few blocks away, a rally near the capital's main synagogue was organized to show support for Israel.

Shortly after sunset, the marchers set out from near Piazza Venezia and lit candles as they headed toward the Colosseum.

Italian communist parties, pacifist groups and other organizations participated in the march.

"It is a complicated situation," said Otello Coccia, a 21-year-old university student in the march. "I think the solution would be to help the Palestinian people and favor coexistence between the Israeli people and Palestinians."

Wrapped in a U.S. flag was marcher Patrick Boylan, a Los Angeles native who teaches English in Rome. "We want to stop all the aggression and all the retaliation," Boylan said. "I would not get into who started this, but they need to stop the conflict."

A five-minute stroll away from Piazza Venezia was the gathering point for a rally later Monday night along the Tiber, outside the synagogue, organized by the tiny Jewish community in Italy to show solidarity for Israel.

Hezbollah guerrillas crossed from Lebanon into Israel last week and snatched two Israeli soldiers, prompting Israel to launch the most intensive offensive against the country since 1982. Israel has bombarded Lebanon's airport and main roads, while Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets into northern Israel.

"What we must hope for is that the causes of this conflict are eliminated," Renzo Gattegna, the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, told Sky TG24 news in an interview. "The events of these days are very painful, also because they involve civilian populations in a heavy way."

He said the gathering was called to rally Italian and European opinion in favor of "guaranteeing the security of Israel."

He complained that Washington recently has done a "poor job of standing up and weakening Syria and Iran" and called on President George W. Bush himself to fly directly from the "silly [Group of Eight] summit in St. Petersburg ... to Jerusalem, the capital of a nation that stands with us, and is willing to fight with us, against our common enemies."

"This is our war, too," according to Kristol, who is also a founder and co-chairman of the recently lapsed Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

"All of us in the free world owe Israel an enormous thank-you for defending freedom, democracy, and security against the Iranian cat's-paw wholly-owned terrorist subsidiaries Hezbollah and Hamas," echoed Larry Kudlow, a neoconservative commentator, at the Standard's right-wing competitor, National Review.

"They are defending their own homeland and very existence, but they are also defending America's homeland as our front-line democratic ally in the Middle East," according to Kudlow who, like Kristol and other like-minded polemicists, also named Syria, "which is also directed by Iran," as a promising target as the conflict expands.

The two columns are just the latest examples of a slew of commentaries that have appeared in U.S. print and broadcast media since Israel began bombing targets in Lebanon in retaliation for Hezbollah's fatal cross-border attack last Wednesday. They appear to be part of a deliberate campaign by neoconservatives and some of their right-wing supporters to depict the current conflict as part of global struggle pitting Israel, as the forward base of Western civilization, against Islamist extremism organized and directed by Iran and its junior partner, Syria.

This view was perhaps most dramatically expressed by former Republican Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, in an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday when he described the conflict as "the early stages of ... the Third World War."

The effort to frame the current round of violence as part of a much larger struggle - and Israel's role as Washington's most loyal front-line ally - recalls the neoconservatives early reaction to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Just nine days after 9/11, Kristol and PNAC - whose charter members included Vice President Dick Cheney, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, and half a dozen other senior Bush administration officials - released an open letter to Bush that called for the U.S. to retaliate not only against al-Qaeda and Afghanistan, but also against Israel's main regional foes, beginning with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chairman Yasser Arafat.

In addition, the letter advised, "any war against terrorism must target Hezbollah. We believe that the administration should demand that Iran and Syria immediately cease all military, financial, and political support for Hezbollah and its operations. Should Iran and Syria refuse to comply, the administration should consider appropriate measures of retaliation against these state sponsors of terrorism."

"Israel has been and remains America's staunchest ally against international terrorism, especially in the Middle East," the letter asserted. "The United States should fully support our fellow democracy in its fight against terrorism."

While the Iraqi and Palestinian components of PNAC's agenda were soon adopted as policy and essentially achieved, neoconservative hopes that Bush would move on Hezbollah - as well as Syria and Iran - eventually stalled as U.S. military forces became bogged down in an increasingly bloody and costly counter-insurgency war in Iraq.

As the situation in Iraq worsened, neoconservative influence in and on the administration also declined to the benefit of "realists" based primarily in the State Department who favored a less aggressive policy designed to secure Damascus' and Tehran's cooperation in stabilizing Iraq and strengthen the elected Lebanese government of which Hezbollah was made a part.

In that context, the current conflict represents a golden opportunity for the neoconservatives to reassert their influence and reactivate their Israel-centered agenda against Hezbollah and its two state sponsors.

"Iran's Proxy War" blazed the cover of this week's Standard, which also featured no less than three other articles, besides Kristol's editorial, underlining Iran's sponsorship of Hezbollah and Hamas and the necessity of the U.S. standing with Israel, if not taking independent action against Tehran and/or Damascus as recommended by Kristol himself.

A major theme of the new campaign is that the more-conciliatory "realist" policies toward Syria and Iran pursued by the State Department have actually backfired by making Washington look weak.

"They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago," wrote Kristol. "Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak," he went on, adding that, "[T]he right response is renewed strength," notably "in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran [and] consider[ing] countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities."

The notion that U.S. policy in the region has become far too flaccid and accommodating is echoed by a number of other neoconservatives, particularly Michael Rubin, a prolific analyst at the hard-line American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and protégé of Cheney confidante and former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle.

In a companion Standard article, Rubin qualified recent State Department policy as "All Talk and No Strategy" that had emboldened enemies, especially Iran, to challenge Washington and its allies.

In another article for National Review Monday, bluntly titled "Eradication First," he elaborated on that theme, arguing diplomacy in the current crisis will only be successful "if it commences both after the eradication of Hezbollah and Hamas, and after their paymasters pay a terrible cost for their support."

"If ... peace is the aim, it is imperative to punish the Syrian and Iranian leadership," he wrote.

Above all, according to the neoconservatives, the U.S. position in the region is now inextricably tied to the success or failure of Israel's military campaign.

In yet another Standard article, titled "The Rogues Strike Back: Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah vs. Israel," Robert Satloff, executive director of the hawkish, pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, argued that "defeat for Israel - either on the battlefield or via coerced compromises to achieve flawed cease-fires - is a defeat for U.S. interests; it will inspire radicals of every stripe, release Iran and Syria to spread more mayhem inside Iraq, and make more likely our own eventual confrontation with this emboldened alliance of extremists."

(Inter Press Service)

Thomas has been one of the few White House correspondents to try to hold George W. Bush and his three lapdog press secretaries accountable for their actions.

Millbank does not hide the fact that he detests Thomas and her politics in calling for a more even-handed U.S. approach to the Middle East. Millbank is a noted apologist for Israel and a key member of what has become known as "The Lobby" in Washington. Millbank harangued former CIA officer Ray McGovern, alleging he was anti-Semitic because he stated that the U.S. attack on Iraq was partially carried out for the interests of Israel. But that is Millbank's job and what his Washington Post masters expect him to do.

In her book, Helen Thomas calls the press to task for their relative silence at Bush press conferences when it was made clear that he was intent on leading the United States to war in Iraq. Millbank calls this "a rather unpleasant rehashing of the liberal criticism of the press's performance before the Iraq war." Millbank continues, "Thomas departs from personal anecdote and merely recites some of the millions of words that have been devoted to the cause in previous books, articles and blogs. It is an effort unworthy of a woman who, whatever her late husband was, truly is a journalistic icon."

Here Millbank goes for the jugular. He infers that some of Thomas's material is not original and he brings in Thomas's late husband, Douglas Cornell of the Associated Press. Perhaps Millbank would want to write about Ann Coulter's lack of originality, also known as plagiarism, before he attacks a real journalist.

Millbank's newspaper, the Post, is nothing more than a laughing stock among Washington's independent journalist corps. It is viewed as nothing more than a contrivance of and conveyance for the Bush White House, corporate public relations firms, the Israel Lobby, and advocacy for fly-by-night diploma mill universities (the Post's Kaplan business unit runs 75 diploma mill campuses around the country). Except for some great investigative reporters like Dana Priest (who exposed the CIA's secret prison camps in Eastern Europe), the Post is scoffed at by Washington's independent media -- seen as a rest home for dried up pontificators like Bob Woodward (Leonard Nimoy's "In Search Of" series missed a golden opportunity to film a segment in Washington, DC -- they could have produced a show called "In Search of a Bob Woodward footnote or source.").

Thomas also writes, "White House reporters became a laughingstock before the viewing public, who wondered about all the 'softballs' being pitched to the president at such a momentous time."

Millbank, one of the chief softball tossers, takes umbrage at Thomas's characterization of most of the press corps. He charges that "the sort of questioning Thomas practices, amounting to argument more than query, is not the sort of questioning any generation of journalists practiced -- not even in the salad days of United Press International, before it collapsed and Thomas became a Hearst columnist."

Here, Millbank needs a little history lesson. The White House Press Corps of past were very well known for their tough questioners: Millbank seems to forget Dan Schorr's constant pressing of Lyndon Johnson, Dan Rather holding Richard Nixon's feet to the fire, and Sam Donaldson not allowing Ronald Reagan to squirm from a question. Of course, these were real journalists, acting on behalf of the public, and not the stenographers and corporate, right-wing propagandists who now populate the White House Press Corps.

Millbank also claims that Bush Press Secretaries Ari Fleischer and Tony Snow merely patronize Thomas by calling her "Helen." Far from patronization, Washington's actual journalists call Ms. Thomas "Helen" as a show of respect, something the Bush apologists and neocons in the DC Press Corps have neither earned nor deserve.

PS: Following on the above theme of a Washington Press Corps that is as sycophantic as it is stenographic, the National Press Club last night awarded  "Best Broadcast" to Howard Kurtz of CNN's Reliable Sources. Kurtz and Millbank are in a dead heat in the race to lick George W. Bush's shoes. It's also important to note that the National Press Club has a new member -- welcome Jeff Gannon.