We have, all of us, Conservative, Liberal, Neoconservative, Centrists, Moderates watched this situation develop with increasing alarm. However, I propose here that the conflict involving Hezbollah / Lebanon and Israel is not at all what it seems on the surface. Instead, it is linked to a series of shortsighted policies and mistakes made by our current administration that are based at least in part on the Neoconservative notion of a 21st Century Pax Americana. That notion is, however, an oxymoron of the worst sort because both the Pax Romana, and Pax Britannia, the historic antecedents, are misapplied. The Pax Romana is a myth created by historians who discount the fact that Rome was almost constantly at war with peoples surrounding the empire during the first two centuries CE. The Pax Britannia is an inappropriate designation that disguises the relationship of the U.K. to its Empire through colonial exploitation. Additionally these designations are terms applied by historians a posteriori while the Neoconservative notion of a 21st Century Pax Americana is presumptive, applied before the fact, and assumes that the United States has the moral right to impose its ideology on foreign nations, an imperial imposition of democracy, also oxymoronic.

I hope to explore this notion in more detail during the next several weeks.