Morning News Roundup (20 July)

Things will be light for the next week, as Mrs. F and I fly down to San Diego for some more family fun tomorrow. If anyone has some suggestions on good music stores or wi-fi coffeeshops in the San Diego area, please leave them in the comments (I've already found Caffe Calabria online, and it looks quite nice). We'll also be visiting the Ocean Beach People's Coop, which is housed in a very green building. (We met the store's manager, Nancy Casady, and her husband on a recent trip to Victoria.)

• [A]n Israeli army spokesman refused to rule out the possibility of a full-scale invasion. Israel also broadcast warnings into south Lebanon on Wednesday telling civilians to leave the region, a possible prelude to a larger Israeli ground operation.
  [...]
  Russia sharply criticized Israel over its onslaught against Lebanon, now in its ninth day, sparked when Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers. The Russian Foreign Ministry said Israel's actions have gone "far beyond the boundaries of an anti-terrorist operation" and repeating calls for an immediate cease-fire. [AP/Forbes]
  
  
• In a departure from almost 60 years of American Middle East policy, the Bush administration hasn't intervened to stop the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah or made a serious effort to negotiate a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
  
  The White House instead has sought to transform the region by ousting or isolating regimes that support terrorism and by promoting democracy. It argues that past administrations' attempts to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East have failed and that more radical change is needed.
  [...]
  So far, however, democracy in Lebanon hasn't resulted in the elimination of Hezbollah; instead, the militant group has been strengthened by elections. And withholding U.S. shuttle diplomacy while allowing Israel to proceed with military force could end up increasing support not only for Hezbollah but also for al-Qaida and other Islamist militant groups. [San Jose Mercury News]
  
  
• Foriegn Policy's Seven Questions section queried Rami Khouri, editor-at-large for Beirut's Daily Star newspaper, about the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, and here's his reaction to a question about Iran's involvement:
  

  FP: How much of the current situation in Lebanon is a result of Iran’s desire to create a distraction from its nuclear program by pulling on its strings with Hezbollah?
  
  RK: I think this idea is pretty standard Israeli spin-doctoring, which is repeated, parrot-like, in the United States. Clearly, there’s a relationship between Hezbollah and Iran. Nobody doubts it. They’ve been very close for many years, and the relationship is a complex one. But Hezbollah is primarily a Lebanese organization. Iran has some influence on it—there’s no doubt about that—in the same way that the United States has influence on some of its smaller allies. This is how power relationships work. The idea that Iran could just order Hezbollah to [attack in order] to divert attention is simplistic. But being simplistic is a tradition of American analysis of the Middle East, unfortunately.
  
  The reality, I think, is more complicated. Iran has been getting stronger. It’s got allies that it works with in the Middle East, of whom Hezbollah is an important one. It probably feels that creating more pressure for the United States and Israel is something that is good for Iranian foreign policy. I’m sure that’s the thinking going on in Tehran. But Iran is not stupid. If Hezbollah gets beaten badly, Iran’s position suffers. They don’t want to weaken their assets; they want to strengthen them.

  
  
• Iran on Thursday promised to formally respond on Aug. 22 to a Western package of incentives aimed at resolving the standoff over its suspect nuclear program. The Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making body, also threatened that the country will reconsider its nuclear policies if sanctions are imposed. [AP/MyWay]
  
  
• After promising to make its unconstitutional military commissions for suspected terrorists comply with the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the White House yesterday took a “harder line” and announced it would propose “only minor changes” to the tribunals. [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
  
  
• Poverty forced its way to the top of President Bush's agenda in the confusing days after Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast and flooded New Orleans. Confronted with one of the most pressing political crises of his presidency, Bush, who in the past had faced withering criticism for speaking little about the poor, said the nation has a solemn duty to help them.
  [...]
  As it happened, poverty's turn in the presidential limelight was brief. Bush has talked little about the issue since the immediate crisis passed, while pursuing policies that his liberal critics say will hurt the poor. He has publicly mentioned domestic poverty six times since giving back-to-back speeches on the issue in September. Domestic poverty did not come up in his State of the Union address in January, and his most recent budget included no new initiatives directed at the poor.
  [...]
  Preoccupied by war and the specter of terrorism and threatened with revolt by his core supporters because of what they see as his free-spending ways, Bush has used the bully pulpit of the presidency not to marshal a new national consensus for fighting poverty but to make the case for cutting taxes along with domestic programs. He has never publicly discussed the growing crisis of young, uneducated black men, whose plight has worsened in the past decade even as the economy has generally flourished, according to a recent spate of academic studies.
  
  Meanwhile, his Office of Management and Budget has sketched scenarios that envision deep funding cuts in an array of programs that aid the poor, including housing assistance, food stamps, Medicaid, community development grants and energy assistance. Budget officials minimize the significance of those projections, saying that they are rarely enacted and that expenditures for many poverty programs have increased sharply since Bush took office. [WaPo]
  
  
• The first six months of 2006 were the warmest, on average, since the United States started keeping records in 1895, and global warming is a contributing factor.The heat wave gripping much of the United States may be uncomfortable but it is not unusual, said Jay Lawrimore of the National Climatic Data Center. What is unusual, Lawrimore said, is to have a six-month period as warm as the period from January to June this year. [Reuters]
  
  
• Two months after hitting the showroom floor, the Toyota Camry Hybrid is practically driving itself off the lot. According to a Toyota press release, the Camry Hybrid sold 4,268 units in June; Fast Company Now (Fast Company's blog) did the math, and judged that this is the first time in 2006 that a hybrid other than a Prius sold more than 3500 units. The addition of the Camry Hybrid gives Toyota ownership of the top three selling hybrids last month; Prius sold 9,696 units, and the Highlander hybrid sold 2,705 units. [Treehugger]
  
  
• DaimlerChrysler has turned its popular teeny Smart car into an EV. The electric version of the Smartfortwo will be available for lease to 100 customers in Great Britain in November. The company will at long last roll out the gasoline version of the Smartfortwo in the U.S. later next year, with general availability in early 2008. If that launch is successful, perhaps the company will bring the electric version over shortly after. [Wired's Autotopia]
  
  
• Zinedine Zidane has been banned for three games and fined £3,260 for head-butting Italy's Marco Materazzi during the World Cup final. Materazzi was suspended for two games and fined £2,170 for provoking Zidane. [BBC]