TRUE TRUCE IN LEBANON ?

The shooting stopped, Israeli soldiers are going home and the United Nations is preparing to send in 15,000 international troops to act as peacekeepers in a buffer zone along Lebanon's southern border. Both Israel and the Hezbollah claim victory in this month-long invasion and war.

President Bush says, "The Hezbollah were defeated." (Mission accomplished?) Then he reiterated Secretary of State Rice's expression about "a new face in the Middle East." Whatever they have in mind is certain to be pro-Israel, anti-Muslim and kind of oily.

We hear from a familiar voice of investigative journalist fame, Seymour Hersh, the man who made Abu Ghraib infamous. Hersh believes the Israeli attack on Lebanon was planned in Washington in 2005. He claims that sources inside both the Bush administration and Tel Aviv tell him U.S. experts on the air war on Kosovo were assisting the Israelis with bombing plans for Beirut and other points in Lebanon.

Their plans might not have been carried out to completion because the Israeli forces met fierce resistance. They failed to reach their goals, as indicated by the sacking and replacing of the military commander and by heavy criticism from within Prime Minister Olmert's Israeli government. The performance of Israeli forces did not impress anyone.

Washington and Tel Aviv might have to use Plan B to topple Iran's rulers, snuff out the nuclear program and set up another Shah.

No, Bush doesn't have a Plan B, but he'll have to find one.