I wrote earlier this week that the fallout of the current war in the Middle East will be a weakening of American influence in the region. My opinion is Iran and Syria perceived a weakness and have moved to exploit it. Sometimes things happpen in history that defy explanation. This may be one of those moments and my thought is a valid as any other on the table.

I still feel that both America and Israel will be weaker in the currency of world opinion regardless of the outcome of the current crisis. This article in The Austrailian discusses that question. Here is a section:

While the Hezbollah war with Israel has helped define the Iranian and Syrian threat, the immediate issue of a nuclear Iran, and North Korea for that matter, has been taken off the front page.

Instead, the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon is another rupture in the shifting geopolitical landscape and a blow to the Bush administration's democracy project in the Middle East.

It was in part anchored by the hoped-for success of Lebanon's fledgling Government as it slipped the yoke of Syria. But now it is in ruins, just as the sectarian warfare in Iraq continues to bog down US efforts to build democracy there.

The US may be the world's only superpower, but the rapid escalation of war in the Middle East underlines the foreign policy challenges for President George W. Bush in the last two years of his term and the apparent diminished role of the US in influencing events in the Middle East.

The article is worth the full read. It even mentions Newt Gingrich's comments this week as he has made the rounds of talk shows. Newt is saying we are in the opening rounds of World War III. I have also been reading other comments about whether this August will be like August 1914 or August 2001-both periods before major world altering events. It is not a time to be distracted and ignorant of what is taking place in our world around us.

I am preparing a two part aritlce for WNP that will discuss the question of American power and it's "pride" or will to use it in the world. The articles will explore the subject from an angle not heard in the press or talk shows today.