It was made even more poignant by the fact that, while she was, through her now familiar argument of Israel's right to self defence, negating the possibility of peace, scores of innocent Lebanese non-combatants, mostly children, were dying from wanton Israeli bombardment, that made no distinction between a soldier and a civilian. One wonders if Condoleezza Rice has seen the gory pictures coming out of Lebanon since the Israel aggression started in July.

Perhaps not, because, her primary source is the US electronic media, whose policy of self-censorship and sanitization of the images, may have kept the real horror in the Middle East from reaching her.

But the rest of the world, through other channels, has been exposed to the real barbarity being perpetrated on the helpless Lebanese by one of the most militarised nations in the world, egged on by the world's most powerful country that is given to the most warmongering proclivity seen in recent times. All this destruction for the release of two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah?

The gruesome pictures and several statements that have emerged of and from the conflict have some very disquieting connotations for peace and the international order that might eventuate from the policy of aggression, as has been done by Israel on the plea of right to self defence, an argument that has been used much too often and carried much too far.

One photograph was particularly horrendous, not because it showed the disfigured bodies of dead Lebanese children and women. It was shocking to see Israeli children, no more than ten years old, inscribing hate messages on canon shells that were being readied for launch into Lebanon. What level of depravity have nations sunk to where the malleable hearts of the young are being readied for hate for the neighbour? It was heartrending to see in other pictures those bombs wreaking death on the innocent children of Lebanon.

Very distressing was the picture, as much as it was shocking in its portrayal, as was the perverted psyche that worked behind the composition of the photographs. If that is the state of mind that modulates the actions of the Israelis, and if that is the mindset that the future generation is going to grow up with, then one is afraid that Rice's call for a long lasting solution to the problem before a ceasefire could even be contemplated, will indeed be very long in coming.

It was not very hard, though, to cull the underlying meanings of the several comments made from the capitals of the western world during the initial stages of the Israeli aggression.

Secretary Rice's comments, at the height of the Israeli bombings of Lebanon and Gaza last month, that it was "the birth pangs of democracy" in the region that the world was witnessing, thereby suggesting that the death and killings in these two countries were only natural phenomena, provoked one commentator to describe her, very aptly, as the "midwife from hell."

If innocent lives are to be sacrificed at the altar of democracy then the world would much rather be without it. When US talks of democracy one must remain wary of its intentions, given its record of the many democracies it helped to topple or prevent from maturing.

Bush's call to "change crisis into opportunity" conveys much more than what the four-word sentence suggests. While it is an attempt to lace the comment with a statesman's vision, it conveys very clearly the long-term design of the US for the area. One could ask whether it is an opportunity to permanently make Lebanon dysfunctional? Is it an opportunity to carry forward the US-Israeli strategic objective of the control of the entire Middle East? Is it an opportunity to subdue the nationalist forces in the region and turn it into a US-Israeli fiefdom?

But of all the policy statements that we heard emanate from the US establishment, nothing is more distressing than the call for a "long term solution" to the crisis. It is not very difficult to make out the very subtle use of subterfuge that allows for more time to the Israeli war machine to perpetrate more havoc on Lebanon and Gaza.

And what are the real implications for a "long term solution"? The crisis has been festered with what a commentator terms as the "planting of the carcinoma" in the heart of the Arab world in 1948. It has continued to provoke disaster after disaster in the last forty-eight years. Do we wait for another forty-eight before Israel calls a halt to its butchery in Lebanon?

The underlying aim of according time to Israel is to see the end of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Is Israel having its way? It is almost three times longer than what Israel took to subdue the Arabs in 1967, and yet Hezbollah has not been eradicated. And even the two more weeks that Olmert feels he requires to neutralise the resistance group may not be enough, although Wednesday's heli-assault on a Hezbollah stronghold, 100 kilometers inside Lebanon, suggests that it is in a hurry to finish the job. Fighting a resistance movement is not the same as fighting a traditional army. Prolonging the Israeli offensive in search for Hezbollah will result in more Qanas.

While the US's and the West's comments have been loaded, the silence of the Arab and the Muslim world, beyond meek expressions of muted resentment, has been deafening. That the Muslim countries in the region with some degree of influence, either because of their relations with Israel or their association with the US, appear to have been neutered, is understood clearly from the comments of Javier Solana, that the Saudis have offered money for the rebuilding of Lebanon, "when it is all over," (read, when the destruction of Lebanon is complete). Even the influential Arab countries have taken Lebanon's demolition as a fait accompli.

The need for an unconditional ceasefire and complete cessation of killings is here and now. That is the precondition of a long-term solution, which is possible only if the root causes are gone into. And that includes Palestine also. But in that equation the US has lost all moral right to be a peace broker, since it has itself become a party to the problem.

The author is Editor, Defence and Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.