Mid East Conflict viewed in NYT, WPost, July 14

Michael Young in today's NYT:
ISRAEL’S incursion into Lebanon after the kidnapping on Wednesday of two Israeli soldiers by the militant group Hezbollah is far more than another flare-up on a tense border. It must also be seen as a spinoff of a general counterattack against American and Israeli power in the region by Iran and Syria, operating through sub-state actors like Hezbollah and the Palestinian organization Hamas.
If America and its Security Council partners are smart, however, they may be able to use this crisis to further their security goals in the Middle East, and to help Lebanon climb out of its political morass.

Thomas Friedman considers that, what we are seeing in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon is an effort by Islamist parties to use elections to pursue their long-term aim of Islamizing the Arab-Muslim world. This is not a conflict about Palestinian or Lebanese prisoners in Israel. This is a power struggle within Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq over who will call the shots in their newly elected “democratic’’ governments and whether they will be real democracies.

The editorialist of Washington Post is putting this question: Israel is entitled to retaliate. And then what?
In Gaza, Israel has shown that it can assert military power, decapitate the Hamas-led government and halt normal life for 1 million Palestinians; however, none of that has forced Hamas to return its hostage. In Lebanon, Hezbollah offers few conventional military targets; its offices, training camps and safe houses are hidden from view. But even if Hezbollah is punished politically at home for its wild irresponsibility, the underlying problem -- its benefactors in Iran and Syria -- remains. That's where American and allied diplomacy and influence should be focused.