Rice begins Mideast tour to promote US-Israeli war aims

Patrick Martin

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Beirut, Lebanon Monday, the first stop in a trip whose purpose is to shore up the joint US-Israeli military campaign against Hezbollah and give more time for the Israeli military to use American bombs and weapons to devastate Lebanon. Rice visits Israel not, as media accounts suggest, to act as a moderating influence on the Zionist regime. Rather, following the logic of Bush administration foreign policy, Rice will pressure the Israelis to intensify the violence in south Lebanon so as to create the optimum conditions for joint Israeli and American pressure against the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad...

continua / continued