The NYT can at times be comical. In an article entitled "From Carnage, U.S. Gains a Concession" we are told:

The contents of the diplomatic package are basically set, and Bush officials said Ms. Rice would lay out its terms on Monday. Under the proposal, Israel and Lebanon would agree to a cease-fire as part of a larger pact that would include installing 15,000 to 20,000 international peacekeepers throughout southern Lebanon, American and Israeli officials said. The Lebanese government would work to disband Hezbollah, and the United States and other countries would funnel money and send military officials to help train the Lebanese Army, so that it could work to prevent future attacks on Israel. Israel would agree to talks on whether it would withdraw from a disputed border area known as Shabaa Farms, a Hezbollah demand.

Where to start?

So the US needed carnage to “gain a concession”? The enormous aid the US gives the state of Israel gave it no leverage?

The Lebanese army will be trained “so that it could work to prevent future attacks on Israel”? I was under the impression that that was the role of the Israeli army, which already gets massive aid from the US. Surely the role of the Lebanese army should be to prevent attacks BY Israel.

Hezbollah should be disbanded. The force that was most fundamental in freeing Lebanon from decades of Israeli occupation should be disbanded? Why?

And Israel's "concessions" in all this? To "agree to talks on whether it would withdraw from a disputed border area known as Shabaa Farms". How painful. And while I know that the dispute about the Shabaa farms is about whether they are part of Lebanon or Syria. But the naive reader will think that the dispute is about whether these are occupied in the first place.