Olmert Loads the Gun but Doesn't Fire It

The security cabinet, in dramatic, swashbuckler style, decided to finally unsheathe its large sword Wednesday, but also to keep it poised high in the air - not yet stabbing - until further notice.

And therein lies the rub.

The communique issued after the six-hour security cabinet meeting stated that the forum decided to approve plans to expand the operation presented by the IDF. But in the very next paragraph it stated that the security cabinet empowered Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz to decide when to begin the operation.

This decision - when to send tens of thousands of troops northward to the Litani - will be dependent on decisions made in Beirut, Paris and New York, not just in Jerusalem. Lebanon could yet be spared the full fury of the IDF force, Israel signaled Wednesday, if it accepted the basic principles of the original US-French cease-fire draft drawn up on Saturday. That draft called for an IDF withdrawal from South Lebanon only after an international force moved in to replace the withdrawing Israeli soldiers and keep Hezbollah from moving back in.

Only after Lebanon and the Arab world rejected this draft did the government decide - a full month after the war began - to significantly widen the campaign. And now it will wait to see how Lebanon and the Arab world react to the newest threat before deciding when to actually implement it.

In other words, the gun is loaded, and Israel is giving the international community time to pressure the Lebanese government into making the "right move" so that it won't have to be fired.

A push to the Litani, senior officials stressed Wednesday, is the only way to stop the Katyusha rocket attacks. With no serious diplomatic movement in the works, the time could best be used to press forward to try and deal a heavy blow to Hezbollah - one that would knock out its diplomatic power and allow for the creation of a new diplomatic order in Lebanon.

On the tactical level, the lack of progress in the villages of southern Lebanon is also not good for the IDF. Sitting static in the villages, senior officers said, was what was causing the large number of IDF casualties over the past week.