Via CNN: Rice in Beirut for talks with Lebanese premier

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an unannounced stop in Beirut on Monday to meet with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora about the crisis in the Middle East.

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The Lebanon leg of Rice’s mission, not officially announced for security reasons, is aimed at assessing the humanitarian situation in the region, paving the way for increased relief aid and to discuss ways to end the crisis, a senior U.S. State Department official said.

There is symbolic significance to the meeting, I will grant–and, indeed, drawing a starker line between US policy towards the Lebanese government and tiwards Hezbollah is useful (although the fact that Hezbollah has seats in the parliament and cabinet slots makes that distinction more difficult).

However, the US has not placed itself in a position to act as an above-the-fray arbiter in this conflict, as it has clearly sided with Israel not just in the fact that it is assaulting Hezbollah, but the way it has done so. And it is that latter issue that will may it more difficult for the Lebanese to see the US as working as an agent that is taking into consideration their interests.

It is difficult to be involved in re-supplying arms to the Israelis whilst simultaneously asserting the need for a cease-fire. Regardless of one’s precise position on this situation, one has to admit that that is something of a contradictory situation.