Indeed, the Decider in Chief could not be more on the money; unless the root cause of the violence taking place in Lebanon today is tackled, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may well end up clocking more frequent flier miles from Washington to the Middle East and back than Henry Kissinger ever did. And Rice clearly stated she has no desire to do that.

In any case, it would be a one-sided conversation following the massacre of some 54 Lebanese civilians, including 37 children, in Qana Sunday by an Israeli air strike. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora informed Secretary Rice that she would not be welcomed in Lebanon so long as a cease-fire was not put into effect.

This is not the first time the Israelis have targeted Qana. In April 1996, Israeli shells killed more than 100 civilians seeking shelter at a U.N. peacekeeping position during a bombing campaign Israel dubbed "Grapes of Wrath."

That the root cause of the conflict needs to be addressed is an absolute fact. Ignore it and other skirmishes will erupt all around it. They teach you about tackling root causes on the first day of conflict resolution school.

So, yes, the Decider in Chief got this one right, except...

Except he is mistaken on one not so minor point. The president is somewhat confused as to what exactly the root cause of this conflict might be.

From day one of this conflict, now in its 20th day, President Bush has been saying that the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others by Hezbollah militiamen is what sparked this latest round of violence.

But if one is to examine the real root cause of this conflict with any depth, one needs to delve deeper into the recent history of the region. For example, one should ask why there is such animosity between Israel and Hezbollah in the first place.

The answer of course, is that Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 to expel the Palestine Liberation Organization. Israel then held on to parts of south Lebanon for 18 years until Prime Minister Ehud Barak ordered the Israeli army out of south Lebanon. Hezbollah, who in the absence of the PLO and the Lebanese army assumed control of the area, is widely credited with forcing Israel to withdraw through its campaign of continued resistance and harassment of Israeli forces.

Israel's precipitated departure from the south of Lebanon in fact earned the Lebanese Shiite organization -- considered to be a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department and by Israel -- enormous clout among the Lebanese people, including Christians, a rarity in the heavily sectarian divided nation. It also won Hezbollah the respect and admiration of many young people throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds. This is particularly true in the West Bank and far more so in Gaza. The Palestinian resistance came to look at Hezbollah as the poster child of their revolution.

Hezbollah gave the Palestinians living in the occupied territories hope that if Hezbollah could do it -- that is, could force out the Israeli army -- then the Palestinians could do the same in the West Bank and in Gaza.

Israel never accepted that Hezbollah forced them out of south Lebanon, and in short, won the first hand in this new war. For Hezbollah this was a major victory. The word "major" should be capitalized, italicized, bolded and under-lined. Hezbollah, in 2000, managed to accomplish what the strongest of Arab armies have been unable to do in nearly six decades of war: resist Israel and claim major a victory.

Israel never forgot the feeling of humiliation the country -- and particularly its military -- experienced when a jubilant Hezbollah celebrated the Israeli army's departure.

But much as Hezbollah and the Israelis are at the forefront of this conflict, that is not the root cause of hostilities by any length of imagination. The root cause of the conflict was, and remains, the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Solve it and you solve 90 percent of the region's problems. Ignore it and Secretary Rice and future secretaries of state will be shuttling back and forth to the Middle East for decades more to come.

(Comments may be sent to Claude@upi.com.)

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