It is said the United States has "scaled-back" its "expectations" now that the United Nations has declared a "ceasefire" in Lebanon. "The U.N. agreement is only the most recent example in which Bush's second-term doctrine of spreading freedom has run into the realities of international and domestic politics," notes the Baltimore Sun.

Actually, Bush's doctrine, which has nothing to do with democracy as most people understand the word, ran into the reality of Hezbollah, the most effective resistance movement in the world. Israel's defeat at the hands of the Shia resistance group, forged and tempered into steel hard resolve over many years by the experience of a brutal Israeli occupation, has dashed the "expectations" of the neocons, who are cut from the same cloth as the Jabotinksyite fascists in Israel. Consumed with racist hubris, both the Israelis and the American neocons expected a decisive victory over Hezbollah. But it didn't work out that way.

As the Baltimore Sun writes, "many analysts said the U.N. resolution is vague about how Hezbollah would be tamed. The agreement also is vague, they said, about how Iran and Syria would be prevented from continuing to send weapons, including rockets, to Hezbollah. And though the pact calls for Hezbollah to leave southern Lebanon, it remains unclear how the group would be stopped from operating north of the Litani River, about 20 miles from the Israeli border."

Flip this around. How will the United States be prevented from sending high-tech armaments to Israel, including cluster bombs and DU-tipped bunkerbusters? Does the U.N. "pact" call for Olmert and his gang of war criminals to leave Israel? Hezbollah will not leave southern Lebanon-or as the above seems to indicate, leave Lebanon, period-because the people of southern Lebanon, primarily Shia Muslims, are Hezbollah. The U.N. "agreement" is vague because it is sincerely absurd to believe Hezbollah will leave their country.

"Some analysts said the truce, with its lack of clarity on key points, could turn out to be exactly what Bush said he did not want. And many said Israel's failure to gain an outright victory has strengthened the political clout of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.... As it became clear that the Israelis were not going to wipe out Hezbollah, support in the White House shifted from the hard-liners, typically led by Vice President Dick Cheney, to the advocates for more diplomacy."

Of course, this was to be expected, as it is impossible to defeat a resistance movement short of killing every last one of its members and those who support it, that is to say just about everybody in southern Lebanon and a good deal of people in the rest of the country. Israel would like to finish the job of killing large numbers of Lebanese, all considered members of Hezbollah, but for the moment the "hard-liners" (Israel First fanatics in the Pentagon and White House) have lost out to "the advocates for more diplomacy," that is to say the neolib faction more accustomed to subverting national resistance and liberation movements in less dramatic ways.

In reality, the neocons have a few tricks up their sleeves.

In essence, the U.N.-brokered "ceasefire" is little more than a public relations stunt, as Israel fully intends to continue targeting Hezbollah, that is to say the Shia of Lebanon. "We will continue to pursue the leaders of Hezbollah everywhere and at all times," Ehud Olmert told a special Knesset session. "This is our moral duty to ourselves, and we have no intention of apologizing or asking anyone's permission." Likudite Benjamin Netanyahu threw in his two cents. "There is a danger that threatens our people. Not only us, our soldiers and our economy.... Since Hitler, there has not been an enemy like Ahmedinejad.... He has Hamas in the south, and Hezbollah in the north. This is an existential peril."

In the world of Jabotinsky fanaticism, up is down and black is white. Ahmedinejad is no Hitler, although the ancestors of Olmert and Netanyahu attempted to snuggle up to the Nazis. In 1941, Avraham Stern, the founder of the Zionist terrorist group Lohamei Herut Israel, proposed intervening in the Second World War on the side of Nazi Germany. Lehi's partner in terrorism, Irgun, eventually became Herut, and Herut Likud, and now Likud has mutated into Olmert's Kadima.

It is said, in the wake of the shock and awe invasion of Lebanon, Olmert will soon be history. However, the failure of Olmert will not lead to a reassessment, but rather renewed fanaticism and warmongering, echoed on the "civilian," that is to say neocon, side of the Pentagon. "A new Israeli regime will not withdraw from any more land, nor shut down any more settlements, nor vacate any part of Jerusalem, nor negotiate with a Palestinian Authority led by Hamas, or by a PLO that is unable to disarm Hamas," writes Patrick Buchanan.

Where does this leave us? With Israel's failure to achieve its strategic objectives in Lebanon and America having failed to attain its strategic objectives in Iraq, Nasrallah emerges triumphant, and Syria and Iran emerge unscathed and gloating.

What comes next? That is obvious.

With our War Party discredited by the failed policies it cheered on in Lebanon and Iraq, there will come a clamor that Bush must "go to the source" of all our difficulty-Iran. Only thus can the War Party redeem itself for having pushed us and Israel into two unnecessary and ruinous wars. And the drumbeat for war on Iran has already begun.

"[T]he dangers continue to mount abroad," wails The Weekly Standard in its lead editorial. "How Bush deals with Ahmadinejad's terror-supporting and nuclear-weapons pursuing Iran will be the test" of his administration. Yes, the supreme test.

Bush is on notice from the neocons and War Party that have all but destroyed his presidency: Either you take down Iran, Mr. Bush, or you are a failed president.

For a psychological basket case such as Bush, this taunting may be too much to endure. Regardless of the "realities of international and domestic politics," Bush may heed his neocon taskmasters and push for a shock and awe invasion of Iran.

At this point, the question is: will the neocon free side of the Pentagon be able hold off Bush's ruinous push for an invasion against Iran?

Probably not.