Now that Israel is going into Lebanon and the fighting intensifies, will the U.S. be able to provide military assistance should it be needed? Well let’s look at the other places our military is tied up in and see. First to Afghanistan:

The most senior British military commander in Afghanistan today described the situation in the country as “close to anarchy” with feuding foreign agencies and unethical private security companies compounding problems caused by local corruption.

 The stark warning came from Lieutenant General David Richards, head of Nato’s international security force in Afghanistan, who warned that western forces there were short of equipment and were “running out of time” if they were going to meet the expectations of the Afghan people.

The assumption within Nato countries had been that the environment in Afghanistan after the defeat of the Taliban in 2002 would be benign, Gen Richards said. “That is clearly not the case,” he said today. He referred to disputes between tribes crossing the border with Pakistan, and divisions between religious and secular factions cynically manipulated by “anarcho-warlords”.

So we are running short on supplies and man power in Afghanistan. Interesting, considering we are currently speeding up shipments of supplies to Israel:

The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

The munitions that the United States is sending to Israel are part of a multimillion-dollar arms sale package approved last year that Israel is able to draw on as needed, the officials said. But Israel’s request for expedited delivery of the satellite and laser-guided bombs was described as unusual by some military officers, and as an indication that Israel still had a long list of targets in Lebanon to strike.

And who said we weren’t helping out in this conflict?

Now let’s take a look at the situation in Iraq:

Seven Shiite workers were gunned down Saturday in a religiously mixed area of west Baghdad, and explosions in the capital killed one American solider and shattered a one-day calm after a ban on private vehicles expired.

The United States was moving to bolster U.S. troop strength in Baghdad to cope with escalating violence between Sunnis and Shiites.

The seven Shiites died in a drive-by shooting near Baghdad International Airport, police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said. Two other workers were wounded.

Two large explosions struck eastern Baghdad. One killed a U.S. soldier near the Rasheed military camp, the U.S. military said. Another targeted an Iraqi police patrol but killed a civilian.

Two rockets exploded later Saturday in the heavily guarded Green Zone, which includes the U.S. and British embassies. There was no report of casualties.

U.S. and Iraqi troops sealed off part of east Baghdad following the blasts and searched homes and shops looking for weapons.

So Iraq is getting worse to the point we have to send more troops into Baghdad. Add to this the ramifications of our increasing supplies to Israel, I am sure that Hezbollah, the insurgency in Iraq and the Taliban will have no problems recruiting and further the problems we have around the Middle East. Failed foreign policy be thy name.