Bolton Admits US Blocked Lebanon Truce

In an interview with the BBC, former UN ambassador John Bolton has admitted that the US deliberately resisted calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon last summer to give Israel more time for its attacks.

Former ambassador to the UN John Bolton told the BBC that before any ceasefire Washington wanted Israel to eliminate Hezbollah's military capability.

Mr Bolton said an early ceasefire would have been "dangerous and misguided".

He said the US decided to join efforts to end the conflict only when it was clear Israel's campaign wasn't working.

...Mr Bolton said the US was deeply disappointed at Israel's failure to remove the threat from Hezbollah and the subsequent lack of any attempt to disarm its forces.

Britain joined the US in refusing to call for an immediate ceasefire.

...At the time US officials argued a ceasefire was insufficient and agreement was needed to address the underlying tensions and balance of power in the region.

Mr Bolton now describes it as "perfectly legitimate... and good politics" for the Israelis to seek to defeat their enemy militarily, especially as Hezbollah had attacked Israel first and it was acting "in its own self-defence".

Mr Bolton, a controversial and blunt-speaking figure, said he was "damned proud of what we did" to prevent an early ceasefire.

Also in the BBC programme, several key players claim that, privately, there were Arab leaders who also wanted Israel to destroy Hezbollah.

"There were many not - how should I put it - resistant to the thought that the Israelis should thoroughly defeat Hezbollah, who... increasingly by Arab states were seen as an Iranian proxy," said UN special envoy Terje Roed Larsen.

More than 1,000 Lebanese civilians and an unknown number of Hezbollah fighters were killed in the conflict.

Israel lost 116 soldiers in the fighting, while 43 of its civilians were killed in Hezbollah rocket attacks.

As Ezra Klein notes today, 60% of Israelis support negotiations with Hamas, only 38% support armed intervention in Iran and doubtless roughly the same majority would have wished a truce in Lebanon sooner rather than later. In the US too, the majority of Jews want peaceful negotiations rather than falling bombs, which is why Ezra is happy to see groups like Jews Against the Iraq War (which I've already mentioned) working to widen "the perceptions of Jewish public opinion in order to match the reality."

Ezra points to a simple truth - the people of both Israel and the US are at odds with their leadership. The leaders have an institutional preference for war-war while the people prefer jaw-jaw. In a democracy, that means it's time for the leaders to stop pursuing war and follow the will of the people.