Face the Nation (CBS) - 2006-07-16
Channel: malgent
Transcript
Language: English (original, YouTube automatic captions)
[0:00] Denise Richards, bearing all about the
[0:02] love triangle. Next ET.
[0:05] Today on Face the Nation, the situation
[0:07] in the Middle East is even worse today.
[0:10] Lebanese Hezbollah forces bombarded the
[0:13] Israeli city of Haifa with rocket fire
[0:16] and Israel sent its bombers back to
[0:18] Beirut. With no sign the violence is
[0:21] abating, is the situation about to
[0:23] spread into a wider regional war? We'll
[0:26] get reports from our correspondents in
[0:29] the region. Lara Logan is in Israel and
[0:32] Elizabeth Palmer in Beirut. President
[0:34] Bush is in Russia for the economic
[0:37] summit, but economics has been pushed
[0:39] aside by the war. So, we'll go there to
[0:42] talk about it with Secretary of State
[0:44] Rice and we'll have analysis from White
[0:47] House correspondent Jim Axelrod. We'll
[0:49] get more perspective from Richard Haass,
[0:52] president of the Council on Foreign
[0:54] Relations, and Jane Harman, the ranking
[0:57] Democrat on the House Intelligence
[0:59] Committee. Then, I'll have a final word
[1:01] on whatever happened to American
[1:03] diplomacy in the region. But first,
[1:06] reports from the scene on Face the
[1:09] Nation.
[1:17] Face the Nation with CBS News Chief
[1:20] Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer.
[1:23] And now, from CBS News in Washington,
[1:26] Bob Schieffer. And good morning again.
[1:28] Here is the latest Hezbollah terrorists
[1:30] in Lebanon launched their heaviest
[1:32] rocket attack yet on the northern
[1:34] Israeli city of Haifa and one of the
[1:36] bombs hit a train station and killed
[1:38] nine people. That sent Israel's bombers
[1:41] back north again. There were more
[1:43] attacks on Beirut and at guerrilla camps
[1:45] in southern Lebanon. At the economic
[1:48] summit in Russia, the president and the
[1:50] western allies called for restraint, but
[1:52] President Bush said again today, Israel
[1:54] has a right to defend itself. We go
[1:57] first this morning to Haifa and our
[1:59] chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan.
[2:02] Lara, it looks pretty calm there now,
[2:04] but it must have been very bad a few
[2:06] hours ago.
[2:07] It was, Bob. You know, residents here
[2:09] woke up to thunderous explosions one
[2:12] after another and it continued for
[2:14] hours. Even at the scene of the most
[2:16] deadly attack down inside a train
[2:18] maintenance depot inside the industrial
[2:20] port here where the most casualties were
[2:23] incurred, that where there were bodies
[2:25] scattered across the platform, even
[2:27] there in the middle of the emergency
[2:29] workers trying to remove the bodies and
[2:31] attend to the wounded, there were
[2:33] repeated air raid sirens and everyone
[2:35] had to run from the scene and take
[2:36] cover. On one occasion, a further four
[2:38] explosions were heard nearby. We were
[2:40] told they landed inside the port and
[2:42] didn't cause any damage and and then
[2:44] these emergency teams went back to
[2:46] attending to the dead. I saw one of them
[2:48] actually wiping the blood off the face
[2:50] of of one of the bodies before they
[2:52] wrapped them up. They take great care
[2:53] here in Israel with their dead and there
[2:55] are teams, religious teams, whose only
[2:57] job is to make sure that they gather
[2:59] every part of the remains. And but the
[3:02] significance of this scale of attack on
[3:04] Haifa really cannot be underestimated.
[3:06] It's not just that it's the deepest
[3:09] inside Israel that Hezbollah have
[3:10] struck, it's the fact that Haifa is such
[3:13] a large, densely populated city with
[3:15] strategic oil reserves, Bob. And we have
[3:18] to remember that this is the start of
[3:20] the work week in Haifa, so there were a
[3:22] lot of people out. What are the people
[3:24] doing now? How are they handling this,
[3:26] Lara?
[3:27] Well, most of the restaurants and
[3:29] businesses that we passed in the city
[3:30] have shut down now.
[3:32] People here, there's a mixture. You get
[3:34] people who are just amazingly still
[3:37] walking in the streets and and going
[3:38] about their business, but at the same
[3:39] time, we also stopped in at shelters
[3:42] where families were cowering during the
[3:43] air raid sirens. And of obviously at the
[3:46] scene of the attacks, people were
[3:47] extremely upset. But what is interesting
[3:49] about this is that calls into the radio,
[3:51] the newspapers here, the general mood
[3:53] amongst the people we speak to is that
[3:55] they are behind their government and
[3:57] they want them to go all the way and
[3:59] finish off Hezbollah. Lara, thank you
[4:01] very much.
[4:03] Israeli jets could be heard over the
[4:05] Lebanese capital of Beirut before dawn
[4:08] and much of that city remained in
[4:10] darkness for a time because some of the
[4:11] city's power had already been knocked
[4:13] out by air strikes. US teams in
[4:16] helicopters have arrived at the American
[4:18] Embassy there to begin work on
[4:19] evacuation plans for the Americans who
[4:22] are stranded in Lebanon. Our CBS News
[4:25] correspondent Elizabeth Palmer is in
[4:27] Beirut this morning.
[4:30] Elizabeth, what's been going on there?
[4:32] Give us the latest. Well, the main
[4:33] political development is Lebanon's Prime
[4:36] Minister who has announced that the
[4:38] Italian Prime Minister approached him
[4:41] with what he says is the terms of a
[4:44] ceasefire from Israel. Two main
[4:46] stipulations. One that Hezbollah gives
[4:48] back the two kidnapped soldiers and the
[4:51] second is that Hezbollah withdraw 12
[4:53] miles north of the Israeli border. So
[4:56] far, no response. The country is braced
[4:59] for a major attack as a reprisal for the
[5:02] Haifa rocket attacks that Lara spoke
[5:04] about in the south of the country. In
[5:06] fact, the Israeli commanders have
[5:08] expressly warned civilians in southern
[5:11] Lebanon to leave the area that a big
[5:13] attack is coming sometime in the next
[5:15] couple of hours. And you have already
[5:18] had some attacks earlier today. Am I
[5:20] right?
[5:21] Yes, we have a couple of big explosions.
[5:23] One of them took out Hezbollah's
[5:26] television station, Al-Manar, which is a
[5:28] national network. But after a little
[5:30] stutter, they were off the air briefly.
[5:31] They're back on the air now, so they
[5:33] clearly have some backup broadcast
[5:35] facilities. And the Americans who are
[5:37] there, maybe 25,000, we don't really
[5:40] know the number. Are plans being made,
[5:41] Elizabeth, to evacuate them and how
[5:43] would they go about doing it?
[5:45] There are plans
[5:47] that are gradually firming up as the the
[5:50] crisis gets more dangerous.
[5:53] Apparently now, the US military is
[5:55] actively working on some kind of convoy,
[5:59] if you like, probably by sea to Cyprus.
[6:02] They think that between two and eight or
[6:05] 10,000 people may take them up on this
[6:08] offer of evacuation, depending on of
[6:11] course how bad things get in the coming
[6:13] week. And in the meantime, you're there
[6:15] bracing for another attack.
[6:17] Yes, we are. So far, the
[6:20] the main attacks are in the southern
[6:22] suburbs where Hezbollah supporters live
[6:25] and we're in the business center, so far
[6:27] relatively untouched.
[6:28] >> All right. Well, thank you very much,
[6:29] Elizabeth.
[6:31] The president, as we mentioned, is in
[6:33] St. Petersburg this morning for the
[6:34] so-called G8 economic summit, but the
[6:37] Middle East is also topic A there and
[6:40] that's where Secretary of State
[6:41] Condoleezza Rice is as well.
[6:45] Madam Secretary, this appears to be
[6:47] worse than ever this morning. What is
[6:50] your assessment from there? Well,
[6:52] clearly we are concerned about the
[6:54] growing civilian casualties. We're
[6:56] concerned about the the general
[6:59] instability in the area. Bob, I think we
[7:02] have to be committed to dealing not just
[7:05] with the immediate crisis, but for to
[7:07] laying a foundation
[7:08] so that when we are out of this set of
[7:11] circumstances, we don't have repeated
[7:13] violence again. We all want a cessation
[7:15] of the violence, but we also want a
[7:18] return to the international framework,
[7:20] resolution 1559 in the case of Lebanon,
[7:24] the road map in the case of the
[7:25] Palestinian territories that will give
[7:27] us
[7:28] a permanent, firm foundation rather than
[7:30] one a cessation of violence that would
[7:32] be held hostage to the next time that
[7:35] Hezbollah or Hamas decide that they want
[7:37] to attack Israeli territory. Well, Madam
[7:39] Secretary, what exactly is the United
[7:41] States doing here? The Lebanese leader
[7:44] yesterday called on the United States to
[7:47] call for a ceasefire. The president said
[7:49] he is not going to do that.
[7:52] What exactly are we doing here? We are
[7:55] working with all of our allies in the
[7:57] region, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia,
[8:00] Jordan. We are working with members of
[8:03] the G8 here.
[8:04] We're working with the Secretary General
[8:06] and of course, we're talking constantly
[8:09] to the Israelis, to the Lebanese and to
[8:11] the Palestinians. And what we're trying
[8:13] to do, Bob, is obviously to to have a
[8:17] cessation of violence. It's going to be
[8:18] important. But I want to repeat, you
[8:20] have to have a cessation of violence
[8:22] that moves this process forward. If you
[8:25] simply say, "Okay, let's cease the
[8:27] violence." And it leaves
[8:30] the conditions in place that allow these
[8:32] extremists to launch these attacks in
[8:34] the first place, then I can assure you
[8:37] we will be back here three weeks from
[8:38] now or three months from now talking
[8:40] about another need for a cessation of
[8:42] violence. This time, we need to make
[8:44] sure that resolution 1559 is is enforced
[8:48] for Lebanon. That resolution says that
[8:51] unauthorized groups should not be
[8:54] allowed to operate on Lebanese territory
[8:57] in precisely the way that Hezbollah did.
[8:59] What Hezbollah did was to use Lebanese
[9:01] territory to launch an attack against
[9:03] Israel without the knowledge of the
[9:06] the Lebanese government. That shows the
[9:08] importance of 1559. We have to have a
[9:11] circumstance in which the Palestinian
[9:13] security forces are able to prevent
[9:16] attacks from Gaza into Israeli
[9:19] territory. We've got to get at the
[9:20] underlying circumstance here, which is
[9:22] that these extremist forces have shown
[9:24] their hand. They're determined not to
[9:26] let progress be made toward a two-state
[9:28] solution. They're determined not to have
[9:30] the Lebanese people have sovereignty and
[9:32] democracy and we are equally determined
[9:35] to isolate the extremist elements and to
[9:38] disable them. Do you believe that Syria
[9:40] and Iran are playing a part in this,
[9:42] Madam Secretary?
[9:44] I absolutely see that Syria and Iran are
[9:47] playing a part in this. They're not even
[9:48] trying to hide their hand. Syria has
[9:51] held the press conferences with radical
[9:54] elements of Hamas. They've held press
[9:56] conferences for Hezbollah.
[9:59] The radical elements of Hamas sit in
[10:01] Syria
[10:02] and find harbor there.
[10:04] And Iran is the the major financier of
[10:07] these efforts. And Iran and Syria like
[10:10] these extremist elements, Hezbollah and
[10:12] Hamas,
[10:13] don't really have a future in the
[10:15] different kind of Middle East that the
[10:17] president and his allies are building.
[10:19] >> Are we saying anything to
[10:21] either of them? Well, many states are
[10:24] speaking with one voice to to Syria and
[10:27] to Iran. Most especially the regional
[10:29] states are talking about the importance
[10:33] of Syria
[10:35] helping to get the those Israeli
[10:38] soldiers returned to safely to Israel
[10:41] of playing their role in stopping the
[10:43] attacks. Absolutely there are efforts
[10:45] with Syria and with Tehran through
[10:48] states that have relations with them.
[10:50] >> Madam Secretary, there are a lot of
[10:51] Americans in Beirut.
[10:53] How are you going to get them out of
[10:55] there?
[10:56] Well, Bob, this is something I'm
[10:58] following
[10:59] really hour to hour. The the ambassador
[11:02] there has full authority to recommend
[11:04] what needs to be done. We're going to
[11:06] protect Americans. We have contingency
[11:08] plans for evacuation of Americans should
[11:11] that become necessary and we've already
[11:13] authorized
[11:14] some of the departure of embassy
[11:17] personnel and we're helping Americans in
[11:19] any way that we can.
[11:20] That is a overwhelming preoccupation
[11:23] right now of our our embassy and of our
[11:25] consulate forces. What impact is this
[11:27] having on Iraq?
[11:29] Well, Iraq is a piece of the puzzle of
[11:32] this different kind of Middle East.
[11:34] Nobody can imagine a
[11:35] different kind of Middle East with
[11:36] Saddam Hussein in the middle of it. You
[11:38] can certainly imagine a different kind
[11:39] of Middle East with a moderate Shia led
[11:43] but multi-ethnic multi-religious Iraq.
[11:45] And so
[11:46] Iraq is a piece of this. But of course
[11:49] many of the forces that would like to
[11:50] destabilize the the rest of the region
[11:52] would like to destabilize the young
[11:54] Iraqi government. We have to recognize
[11:56] what is going on here. This is now
[11:58] becoming very clear. The extremists are
[12:00] showing their hand. And we have to be
[12:01] equally determined that they're not
[12:03] going to succeed in Iraq, in Lebanon
[12:06] and in the Palestinian territories. And
[12:09] what is the president doing? Has he made
[12:11] any calls in connection with this this
[12:13] morning? How much of his time is he
[12:15] spending on this? Well, the president
[12:17] was just
[12:18] just this morning with Prime Minister
[12:20] Blair where they spent the bulk of their
[12:21] time on this issue with President Chirac
[12:24] where they talked in
[12:27] substantial agreement about the
[12:29] underlying problem here and the need to
[12:32] address the underlying problems. I would
[12:33] remind everyone that Great Britain,
[12:36] France and the United States were the
[12:37] co-sponsors of Resolution 1559 that
[12:41] relates to sovereignty for Lebanon.
[12:44] And so he is working very actively with
[12:47] his colleagues here, but he's also had
[12:50] phone calls with the Prime Minister
[12:52] Siniora and King Abdullah of Jordan and
[12:56] and will talk to others as well. All
[12:59] right. Well, thank you very much, Madam
[13:00] Secretary.
[13:02] Our White House correspondent Jim
[13:03] Axelrod is also in Russia covering the
[13:06] economic summit. We want to go to him
[13:08] now. Jim, you just heard the Secretary
[13:11] of State. She says that the president
[13:13] has not called for a ceasefire.
[13:16] He calls only for the Israelis to be
[13:19] very careful and try to hold down
[13:21] civilian casualties.
[13:23] Is he in concert with the other allies
[13:25] there at the summit? Not not really,
[13:27] Bob. In fact, I think that's the whole
[13:29] story, the contacts that the G8 is
[13:32] unfolding in. The president and to an
[13:34] extent Tony Blair from Great Britain are
[13:37] both strong, firm, even fierce
[13:39] supporters of Israel.
[13:42] They're saying that the the start and
[13:44] the sole cause of the conflict, the
[13:46] unfolding crisis, is Hezbollah and that
[13:49] Israel should show restraint, but that
[13:50] Hezbollah is responsible and Hezbollah
[13:52] alone. What you hear from the Prime
[13:55] Minister of Italy, Prodi, or Jacques
[13:57] Chirac, the president of France, or
[13:59] Vladimir Putin even, is varying degrees
[14:02] of blame for Israel for a
[14:04] disproportionate response. In fact, some
[14:06] of the rhetoric from President Putin
[14:08] just yesterday was questioning whether
[14:11] Israel's motives were something more
[14:13] than just getting the kidnapped soldiers
[14:14] back. So you have this gulf, if you
[14:17] will, between President Bush's position,
[14:20] which is that Israel should show
[14:22] restraint, but that Hezbollah is to
[14:24] blame and some of these other G8
[14:26] countries which say Israel has a part to
[14:28] play in this too because of a
[14:29] disproportionate response. And so how
[14:31] are you going to end up on some sort of
[14:33] same page as far as a unified position
[14:35] coming out of the G8? That's still the
[14:37] big question here. Well, where do you
[14:39] think this goes from here? What will be
[14:41] the next step by the United States, Jim?
[14:45] I think the rest of the time here, Bob,
[14:46] is going to be about getting some kind
[14:49] of unified statement and that's going to
[14:51] be tricky. It's going to be all about
[14:52] language. And if you do hear, for
[14:55] instance, some kind of terms crop up to
[14:58] discuss Israel's role, for instance, a
[15:01] principle about any country has the
[15:04] right to respond to an attack, but needs
[15:06] to do so with restraint, you may see
[15:08] those other countries push for Israel to
[15:10] be mentioned by name and the US and
[15:12] perhaps Great Britain to just try to
[15:14] keep it as a general statement. The rest
[15:15] of the time here will be about getting
[15:17] some sort of unified statement and it
[15:20] just may be at the end of the day they
[15:21] can't come up with anything. Okay. Well,
[15:23] thank you, Jim.
[15:25] And when we come back, we will get the
[15:27] perspectives of Congresswoman Jane
[15:29] Harman and Richard Haass, who is the
[15:31] president of the Council on Foreign
[15:33] Relations, in a minute.
[15:40] This portion of Face the Nation is
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[16:23] And with us now Congresswoman Jane
[16:25] Harman, the top Democrat on the House
[16:27] Select Intelligence Committee, joining
[16:29] us from Salt Point, New York. Richard
[16:31] Haass, president of the Council on
[16:33] Foreign Relations. Well, Congresswoman,
[16:36] you heard the Secretary of State. What
[16:38] is your reaction to what she said?
[16:40] Well, I was positive about what she said
[16:42] as far as she goes, but she's left a few
[16:45] things out. First of all,
[16:46] the doctrine of preemption, the Bush
[16:48] doctrine, shouldn't just be at the end
[16:50] of a gun. It should be preemptive
[16:52] diplomacy. And had our government acted
[16:55] in 2004 to enforce Resolution 1559, we
[16:59] might not now have this Hezbollah
[17:01] problem. In addition, had our government
[17:03] done more to support Mahmoud Abbas
[17:07] before the January election in
[17:09] Palestine, we might not have had this
[17:11] Hamas victory there. So
[17:13] >> What what what do you mean when you say
[17:14] had they enforced this resolution?
[17:16] >> Well, the as Condoleezza Rice explained,
[17:18] the resolution says that there should be
[17:21] no foreign
[17:22] forces in Lebanon. That's now true since
[17:25] the Syrians have been forced out, but
[17:27] there should be no militias either. And
[17:29] Hezbollah is a militia. In fact, it's
[17:31] the A league of militias. Let's remember
[17:32] Hezbollah is the group that that killed
[17:36] our Marines in the barracks in the '80s
[17:38] in Lebanon, that blew up our embassy,
[17:40] that attacked Jewish community center in
[17:43] Buenos Aires. In fact, former Senator
[17:45] Bob Graham, former chairman of the
[17:47] Senate Intelligence Committee, said that
[17:50] we took our eye off the Hezbollah ball
[17:52] when we went into Iraq.
[17:54] >> Well, how could we have disarmed them?
[17:55] How could we how could we have disarmed
[17:57] them?
[17:58] How Well, we could have insisted that
[18:00] the Lebanese government disarm them.
[18:02] They did not. They have a weak
[18:03] government. Their government's not able
[18:05] to do anything in the face of these
[18:07] Israeli attacks. And by the way, I do
[18:09] think Israel has a right to defend
[18:11] herself.
[18:12] Defend herself. This was a premeditated
[18:14] provocative act on the part of Hezbollah
[18:16] and the missiles and rockets being used
[18:19] have an Iranian address and they should
[18:21] respond.
[18:22] >> All right. Well, let's go to Richard
[18:24] Haass. Uh Mr. Haass, you of course were
[18:26] a member of the the Bush administration
[18:28] during the first term. You're now
[18:30] president of the Council on Foreign
[18:31] Relations. You're just back from Israel.
[18:34] Where should we go from here?
[18:38] The United States has got to take this
[18:39] very seriously. My own view is that if
[18:42] Israel does not get satisfaction
[18:44] in Lebanon, essentially if it can't
[18:46] force Hezbollah to stop shooting off
[18:49] missiles at Israel, it will have to
[18:51] think about expanding the war against
[18:53] Syria and Iran.
[18:55] Obviously that would have all sorts of
[18:56] far-reaching strategic and economic
[18:58] consequences, which we don't want to
[18:59] see.
[19:00] So I think what this does is essentially
[19:02] makes it urgent that the United States
[19:04] do two things. One is launch a
[19:06] high-profile diplomatic effort to see
[19:08] Hezbollah pushed back from the border in
[19:10] the context of a ceasefire and the
[19:12] prisoner exchange. And secondly, as part
[19:15] of this, I believe it's time for the
[19:17] United States to have an unconditional
[19:19] broad dialogue with Iran. We have got to
[19:21] understand that Hezbollah in part takes
[19:24] orders from Tehran and it's not good
[19:26] enough to say the United States will
[19:28] talk to Iran only on nuclear issues and
[19:31] then only if Iran first stops everything
[19:33] that they're doing in the nuclear area.
[19:35] This points out that we really have to
[19:37] sit down with them and deal with
[19:39] regional issues across the board. So
[19:41] when you talk about a high-level
[19:42] diplomatic mission, what are you talking
[19:44] about? A special envoy, some very
[19:46] high-profile person, some sort of
[19:49] shuttle diplomacy?
[19:51] It could be that. Could be a Secretary
[19:53] of State, could be an envoy, but more
[19:55] important than who does it is that it
[19:57] include an Iranian dimension, a Syrian
[19:59] dimension, and a Lebanese dimension. Uh
[20:02] but we we have to understand that this
[20:04] goes beyond Lebanon and the Lebanese
[20:06] government itself simply lacks the
[20:09] capacity to fulfill its obligations
[20:11] under international law, which as
[20:13] Congresswoman Jane Harman said said
[20:15] opens up Israel's right to use military
[20:17] force. Either either Lebanon fulfills
[20:20] its obligations or Israel has a a right
[20:23] to defend itself. Well, if you had a
[20:25] shuttle kind of diplomacy, uh
[20:27] Congresswoman, where where would you be
[20:29] your first stop? Well, I think there's a
[20:30] problem, and the problem is that we have
[20:33] no relations with Iran. We have poor
[20:36] relations with Syria. Uh we have uh
[20:39] um bad relations with uh
[20:42] numerous countries in the region uh
[20:44] because of the way we have been
[20:46] conducting ourselves in Iraq. It's not
[20:48] just the military action. It's it's
[20:50] really not that. It's the post-war
[20:51] planning. It's the naive assumption that
[20:53] it would be an easy victory and then
[20:55] democratization would spread throughout
[20:56] the Middle East. Obviously, the opposite
[20:58] has happened. Uh so I I uh I I I think
[21:02] Richard Haass is a very wise man, and I
[21:04] do agree uh that we do need to be
[21:06] talking to Iran, but I think before we
[21:08] start shuttle diplomacy, uh we need to
[21:10] have an itinerary. And uh the UN is
[21:13] sending uh uh high-level envoys there.
[21:15] We actually have some high-level envoys
[21:17] there. We have Elliott Abrams and David
[21:19] Wel- uh Walsh there. And we have an
[21:21] excellent ambassador in uh Lebanon. And
[21:24] uh I think we need to let this unfold a
[21:27] bit more. Israel is draining the swamp
[21:29] here both in Lebanon and in Gaza. And
[21:33] that's something actually that many of
[21:34] the neighbors in the region, although
[21:36] they're not in the front line here,
[21:38] support. Uh Saudi Arabia supports uh has
[21:41] condemned what Hezbollah is doing.
[21:42] >> Um um uh Mr. Haass, do you see a
[21:44] connection between this and Iraq?
[21:49] Uh not a direct one. I think Iraq uh
[21:52] as I've called in the past was an
[21:54] unfortunate war of choice. It's one that
[21:56] has tied the United States down. If
[21:58] there is a connection, it is that
[22:01] countries like Iran see the United
[22:03] States very much tied or bogged down,
[22:05] and they they therefore feel that
[22:07] they've got more freedom to act. They
[22:08] feel less pressure. They're less
[22:09] concerned about US military options. So,
[22:12] if there is a connection, it would be
[22:14] just that that they see us in some ways
[22:16] distracted, more important bogged down,
[22:19] and it therefore gives them a little bit
[22:20] of an opening to be more aggressive. And
[22:22] this is clearly, Bob, part of a a larger
[22:25] radical effort to assert themselves.
[22:27] They see there's no longer a Soviet
[22:29] Union. The United States is seen as
[22:31] somewhat weaker because of Iraq, also
[22:33] because of our enormous energy
[22:35] dependency on the region. And what we're
[22:37] seeing is a bid by radical forces, Iran,
[22:40] Syria, Hezbollah, to essentially
[22:42] establish a certain primacy in the
[22:44] region. And this could be the beginning
[22:46] of a new region a new era in the Middle
[22:48] East where the United States and Israel
[22:51] have to contend with if not quite a
[22:53] a radical coalition, something getting
[22:55] close to it where they are they are
[22:57] bidding to redefine the the political
[22:59] nature of this part of the world. All
[23:01] right. Well, I'm going to thank both of
[23:02] you for adding this perspective this
[23:04] morning. We'll be back with a final word
[23:06] in just a minute.
[23:13] Face the Nation continues and is always
[23:16] on cbsnews.com
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[24:33] Could stem cells restore hearing? That's
[24:35] what this research team believes. A look
[24:37] at what they found Monday. See why more
[24:39] people are watching the CBS Evening News
[24:41] with Bob Schieffer.
[24:44] Finally today, when the war broke out in
[24:46] the Middle East, the first thing I
[24:48] thought about was the old story of the
[24:50] frog and the scorpion who were trying to
[24:52] cross a river there. The scorpion
[24:53] couldn't swim, the frog was lost. So,
[24:56] the scorpion proposed a deal. Give me a
[24:58] ride on your back, and I'll show you the
[25:01] way. The frog agreed, and the trip went
[25:03] fine until they got to the middle of the
[25:05] river, and then suddenly the scorpion
[25:07] just stung the frog. As they were
[25:09] sinking, the frog asked in his dying
[25:12] breath, "Why would you do that?" To
[25:14] which the scorpion replied, "Because
[25:16] this is the Middle East." It is worth
[25:18] noting that the Palestinians in the Gaza
[25:21] Strip did not kidnap that Israeli
[25:23] soldier and provoke all of this because
[25:26] the Israelis were invading Gaza. No, all
[25:28] this happened in the wake of the Israeli
[25:31] withdrawal, which was what the
[25:33] Palestinians supposedly wanted. But this
[25:37] is the Middle East. Why would
[25:39] fundamentalists in Gaza and Lebanon
[25:41] choose to provoke this war at this time?
[25:43] There is no real answer except this is
[25:46] the Middle East. Israel had every right
[25:48] to respond, and it did. But again, this
[25:51] is the Middle East. So, perhaps a
[25:52] response may have made it all worse by
[25:55] giving moderate Arabs in the region an
[25:57] excuse to distance themselves from
[25:59] Israel.
[26:01] There was a time when America spent a
[26:02] lot of its diplomatic effort on the
[26:04] Middle East, and sometimes it actually
[26:06] worked. Jimmy Carter's Camp David
[26:08] Accords, after all, removed Egypt as the
[26:11] main threat to Israel. But in recent
[26:14] years, we have stepped back. Why? That's
[26:16] hard to say except this is the Middle
[26:19] East.
[26:21] We'll see you next week right here on
[26:23] Face the Nation.
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[27:30] I've been reporting the news for a long
[27:32] time, so I think I know a little about
[27:34] journalism. Come September, I'll be back
[27:36] in Washington on my regular beat. But
[27:39] the anchor chair will be in good hands
[27:41] because my friend Katie Couric will be
[27:43] here. Just watch.
[27:47] This portion of Face the Nation was
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[28:01] selection of today's guests and topics.
[28:04] It originated in Washington, D.C.
[28:29] Experience
[28:31] CBS News.
[28:34] This week, a car accident damaged
[28:36] Annette's body, but not her spirit. How
[28:38] was she able to brush her hair, feed
[28:40] herself, even do embroidery? Don't miss
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