So we're talking a very, very long war, then, indeed.

AP Wire | 07/27/2006 | Rice defends U.S. position on cease-fire:

Aboard her plane en route to Asia, Rice tried to downplay expectations of a quick fix in the Lebanon or the Middle East. “I am a student of history, so perhaps I have a little bit more patience with the enormous change in the international system and the complete shifting of tectonic plates, and I don't expect it to happen in a few days or even a year,” she said.

OK, she said she's a student of history, not geology. But I'm just wondering here. Tectonic plates?

Wikipedia:

Sometimes the idea moving tectonic plates is used metaphorically, e.g. “the tectonic plates have moved” in a BBC TV news program describing the political effects of Ariel Sharon's illness on 4 January 2005.

Ah. Right. So that's what we're waiting for. Only this time, complete. Like a sign of some kind, I guess.

Only if the Israelis and Lebanese stop shooting at each other that wouldn't be a tectonic plate shift, that'd be a ceasefire. Which we're against.

So, something else. Like the US getting a coherent foreign policy, maybe. Would that count?

Or even a few coherent politicians?

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