More links

Deepa Kumar of Rutgers University, on US Media, Israel, and Lebanese Civilians in Monthly Review:

It is hard to predict when and if the media will stop running images of Lebanese casualties and destruction of Lebanese towns. Unless censored by the state and/or the corporate parents that own them, the 24-hour news channels which constantly need new and sensational images will continue to show them to boost their ratings. And in turn, more of the public is likely to start questioning Israel's actions.

And on the other side of the barricades, Victor Davis Hanson of Stanford University's conservative Hoover Institute, on What Options Are Left?:

Any new policy of retaliation — in light both of Sept. 11 and the messy efforts to birth democracies in Afghanistan , Iraq , Lebanon and the West Bank — would be something of an exasperated return to the old cruise-missile payback. Yet in the new world of Iranian nukes and Hezbollah missiles, the West would hit back with something far greater than a cruise missile. If they are not careful, a Syria or Iran really will earn a conventional war — not more futile diplomacy or limited responses to terrorism. And history shows that massive attacks from the air are something that the West does well.

Also, while I'm recommending articles by my friends*, I recommend checking out Pham Binh's article from this April, The Coming War With Iran:

A European diplomat put it this way to [New Yorker writer Seymour] Hersh: “This is about more than just a nuclear issues. That’s just a rallying point. [...]The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next 10 years.” If Iran gets nuclear power, it will be able to counterbalance Israel and make U.S. military attacks on Middle Eastern countries difficult, if not impossible, because the U.S. will have to constantly worry about what Iran will do in response to American aggression.

*I am not friends with Victor Davis Hanson.