Bellum Interruptus

It seems that the US is putting pressure on Olmert to delay the promised offensive.

The troops were already rolling late Wednesday when they were ordered to halt. It appears heavy US pressure delayed the offensive to allow diplomacy to run its course. A senior minister said Wednesday that Israel might delay the expansion for 2-3 days for that purpose.

This was inevitable given how long it has taken Israel to actually start moving. It's pretty clear that the diplomacy is unlikely to produce any result good for Israel, but Olmert seems more than happy to delay. He is undoubtedly Israel's most incompetent PM to date.

On the other hand, there do seem to be some positive results that have been achieved by the IDF already. Ken Timmerman lists a number of them. I think he is being overly optimistic on the achievements.