Andrew Sullivan's Observation

Andrew Sullivan makes a very good observation:-

While the world remains understandably transfixed on Lebanon and Israel, one fact bears keeping in mind: more people were killed in Iraq in the past two weeks than in Israel and Lebanon combined...

...The numbers tell the story: 2,669 Iraqis lost their lives to violence in May. In June the number jumped to 3,149. Almost all the deaths were deliberate targeting of civilians. The attempt after the death of insurgent Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to assert the Maliki government’s control of Baghdad — a police and military offensive in the capital — has been revealed as a failure within a few weeks. Days before meeting Blair, even Bush conceded in a meeting with Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s nominal prime minister, that the security situation in Baghdad was “terrible”.

In many ways the biggest story of the past fortnight may, in other words, have been missed. It was not the moment that Israel used “disproportionate” force; it was the moment when the West’s inadequate force in Iraq was revealed as finally, irredeemably, insufficient to the task.