Secretary of State Condi Rice went on ABC's This Week and NBC's Meet The Press to discuss the draft UN resolution about the Israel-Lebanon war.

And it was a classic, pathetic Condi performance, again indicating that the insincere, foot-dragging diplomacy continues.

She didn't argue the resolution would bring about a complete cease-fire, saying on ABC "there will likely be some skirmishes, some difficulty" before the violence wound down.

But that's nonsensical.

Without buy-in from both the Israeli government and the Hezbollah leadership, a "skirmish" would not be a denouement, but an excuse to keep fighting.

She disengenously contended that the resolution was fair to both Israel and Lebanon, saying, "Israel would have liked to have seen other things in this resolution. Lebanon would have liked to have seen other things in this resolution."

But the Lebanese government wouldn't get any significant concession from the Israeli government in the resolution -- nothing substantive that would resolve the issue of the Shebaa Farms occupation or the Lebanese prisoners held by Israel.

Yet Lebanon is being asked to accept a huge concession, allowing Israeli soldiers to remain on their land indefinitely, until an international peacekeeping force can be rounded up.

(As noted here last week, the Bush-backed Lebanese Prime Minister is the only figure so far who has a proposal involving concessions and risks on his own part.)

That is practically asking for more "skirmishes", which would prevent an international force from ever getting there.

Unsurprisingly, Lebanon didn't swallow Condi's spin, and the draft resolution is now stalled.

But perhaps the pinnacle of Condi's pathetic performance was on NBC, when Tim Russert asked her about criticsm from her former reputy Richard Haass. Russert said:

The president referred to the conflict of the Middle East as "a moment of opportunity," but ... former Bush administration official, Richard Haass, had this to say ... "An opportunity? ... That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. If this is an opportunity, what's Iraq? A once-in-a-lifetime chance?"

Condi then ripped off Al Gore's recent talking point about the global warming crisis, that the Chinese character for crisis is the combination of "danger" and "opportunity." Condi said:

You know, Tim, the Chinese have a character for crisis. It's weiji -- danger and opportunity. I think they have it right...

...it is a time of tremendous turbulence in the Middle East, it's a time of change in the Middle East, and the United States has an obligation to ... try and, on the basis of the work that has been done, construct and help those in the Middle East construct a better Middle East.

Of course, by cribbing from Gore, this is intended to sound hopeful and peaceful. And it theoretically could be.

This crisis could be used to accelerate the resolution of destabilizing disputes, like Shebaa Farms or even the Golan Heights -- strengthening moderate peacemakers and marginalizing militants.

But that is not the sort of opportunity Dubya & Condi are envisioning.

They see an opportunity to stoke violence and create conditions for more Iraq-style regime change.

With that in mind, there was a cryptic exchange between CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Lebanese political analyst Roula Talj, that is crying out for some follow-up.

Talj said to Wolf on CNN's Late Edition:

I want to tell you and tell the American people a very short story. And I want you to judge who is behind all this mess in the Middle East.

In September 2004, a common friend of yours and mine, Wolf -- and I won't say his name now -- came to Lebanon and Damascus.

And he is a very close friend to Israel, believe me. Nobody more than this guy love Israel's interest. [sic]

He came to see whether there is a possibility for a certain peace talk in the future.

A week later, President Bush made a presidential statement forbidding any peace talks to go between Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

So I will let you, and the smart people in Washington and the United States, to judge who is behind this mess in the Middle East today.

You will not be shocked to know that Wolf did not follow-up.