EUROPE (BUT NOT FRANCE) MIGHT BE WAKING UP

Europe Wakes Up? (WSJ-BOTW)
Chicago Sun-Times columnist John O'Sullivan says Iran's proxy war against Israel may mean "the beginning of the end" of "the anti-Israel orthodoxy of European politics":

In the last week, however, all [Europe's] assumptions were suddenly undermined. Israel found itself under attack precisely because it had made the sacrifices that Europeans regularly demand. Its voluntary withdrawal from southern Lebanon was seen by Hezbollah as an Arab victory and a sign of Israeli weakness. The withdrawal also brought Hezbollah right up to the border from which it could launch missiles into the heart of Israel. And somebody had given Hezbollah longer-range missiles capable of hitting major cities such as Tel Aviv.

Who? Well, as the G-8 statement makes clear, Iran. . . .

Europe, in short, is beginning to wake up to the Iranian threat and its terrorist aspects. Shortly after this crisis began, hard-headed European analysts such as the Daily Telegraph's Con Coughlin pointed out that Iran had almost certainly orchestrated this crisis to distract attention at the G-8 and the U.N. from its nuclear progress and wider ambitions. The sudden outbreak of realism at the G-8 suggests that Bush, Blair, Chirac, Germany's Angela Merkel and even Putin share Coughlin's analysis. Maybe they even hope that Israel will reduce their problems by saving Lebanon from Hezbollah rule and Iranian manipulation. They should.

However, a Jerusalem Post report suggests that one European country is engaging in a bit of unilateralism:

France sent Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to Beirut on Monday to express support for Lebanon, President Jacques Chirac's office said. . . .

On Friday, President Jacques Chirac said that the [Israel Defense Forces'] actions in Lebanon were "totally disproportionate" and asked whether destroying Lebanon was not the ultimate goal.

"One could ask if today there is not a sort of will to destroy Lebanon, its equipment, its roads, its communication," Chirac said during an interview in the garden of the presidential Elysee Palace to mark Bastille Day, the French national holiday.