WAR ESCALATES, MORE TO COME

According to the Washington Times, the Israeli effort is “not yet half completed.” The story also says ground troops are part of the plan. (Washington Times) Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister met with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. The story notes “Syria and Iran are close allies. Both support Hezbollah, whose capture of two Israeli soldiers provoked the current crisis in the Middle East.” (BBC) The Bush “expletive” that media is reporting also targets Syria, as he said “See, the irony is what they really need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this (expletive.)" (CNN) Hewitt looks at the Iranian connection. (Townhall) From Bush: “There's a lot of people who believe that the Iranians are trying to exert more and more influence over the entire region and the use of Hizbullah is to create more chaos to advance their strategy, a theory that's got some legs to it as far as I'm concerned.” (Newsweek) From the Ayatollah Khamenei Sunday: “The American president says Hizbollah should be disarmed. But it will not happen...The Lebanese people appreciate the resistance because their powerful limbs have been responsible for not allowing the Zionists whatever they want, whenever they want in Lebanon.” (Financial Times) In the BBC story noted above, he called Israel an “evil and cancerous being.”