It's ludicrous to say that the violence in Israel and Lebanon is George Bush's fault. But the United States has failed to do anything about it. And that's a failure we can pin squarely on George Bush and his cowboy diplomacy.

Our ineffectiveness is the result of two complimentary forces. First, Bush has been actively disinterested in engaging the Middle East peace process. Remember Clinton? The handshake on the White House lawn? The historic peace accords? The steady march towards progress?

I think it's telling that both presidents had high-stakes, high-profile peace talks break down when it looked like a deal was in everybody's best interest. But Clinton couldn't get Arafat to accept final borders in a two-state deal. Bush can't get Israel and Hezbollah to stop bombing each other. That's big difference.

Second, we have been distracted from the issues that matter by the Iraq War that George Bush lied to get us into. This is exactly what the anti-war crowd said would happen. America has been distracted by sectarian violence in Iraq and has let Iran grow more and more bold. Now, it's all but certain that Iran at least had advance knowledge of Hezbollah's actions, even if it didn't sanction them.

This is what happens when you run foreign policy with cowboy machismo and rigid ideology. A safer and freer world takes constant vigilance in the hotspots that matter the most. Instead, we went after a two-bit tyrant that didn't threaten anybody.

And now we're powerless to do anything in a situation where we might actually do some good.