Welcome to the new Middle East

I was reading recently how the most modern armies are increasingly frustrated by the mismatch between their firepower and their ability to win hearts and minds. Some of us would say that it is precisely the shock and awe of their weapons which builds hostility to them around the world and makes it so hard for them to win popular support in their own countries, let alone in those that they attack.

They can win the military battles without much difficulty, they say, but they repeatedly stand to lose the political argument.

There's a lot in that. Although even on the military front, the big powers aren't doing so well. The US and Britain have not defeated the resistance in Iraq, the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and Israel _the biggest military power and the only nuclear power in the Middle East_has failed in its objective of crushing Hizbollah in Lebanon. This is despite bombing roads, bridges, flats, oil refineries, airports and petrol stations.

Hizbollah is in fact much stronger in Lebanon than a month ago, its support hardened and widened by the Israeli aggression. To many people it is regarded as the victor in this particular battle. In Israel a major political crisis is brewing as the Israelis contemplate the unthinkable _defeat.

When it comes to hearts and minds, however, things are much worse than that. The invasion of Lebanon, overlaid on the other disasters in the region, has created far more opposition to the US, Britain and Israel, and far more support for those who oppose them.

Don't think this will stop Bush and Blair in their tracks though. As Seymour Hersh spelt out in such detail in his New Yorker article, the US was fully informed and behind this attack, which was planned long before the capture of two Israeli soldiers (whose release has not been included in the ceasefire)_the incident which formed the alleged basis for the war.

It was clearly seen by the US as the first phase in the war against it major adversary in the region, Iran. Since the Lebanon ceasefire, attention has now turned again on the Iranian regime. We shouldn't expect Bush to be chastened by his proteges' failure in Lebanon.

The last refuge of this scoundrel government faced with a foreign policy running the gamut from disaster to catastrophe is to play the terrorist card. Iran= Hizbollah=terrorism=people who blow up planes by concocting bombs out of Lucozade bottles. Home Secretary John Reid is agitating for 90 day detention as a result of the alleged plot uncovered last week for the 'British 9/11.'

It takes people's minds and newspaper headlines from the war and the growing rebellion against Tony Blair within the Labour Party. It also builds up hysteria against young Muslim men in particular and there is growing disquiet, I think, in the Muslim community about these repeated raids.

Don't get me wrong. Such attacks have nothing to do with genuine protest against the war or anything else and if there is evidence then these people should be arrested and charged. But we have been here before.

The Forest Gate brothers had equally lurid headlines about a chemical bomb, chemical vests and so on. One was shot. The police now say there was no evidence. There was the alleged plot to blow up Manchester United football ground by Iraqi Kurds.They were all released without charge. Then there was the supposed ricin plot in north London, used in 2003 by Colin Powell as evidence of terrorist threats in the lead up to war.

Except there was no ricin and no plot.

Too much media speculation and intelligence leaks simply cannot be stood up. If that keeps happening, no wonder people become cynical of government motives.