Rome Treaty Not to be Built in One Day

Rife with disagreement, and U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice's brushing aside of an immediate ceasefire, Prodi's Lebanon Summit was largely a failure, showing no immediate results.

In Lebanon the bombardments continue, the IDF advances, and in Haifa the Hezbollah rockets continue to fall. The idea of an international force, supported by many, remains hypothetical, with no nations volunteering troops, and security experts sustaining that any international force in southern Lebanon without Syrian involvement is doomed to failure.

Israel hopes to establish a mile wide buffer-zone, a "strip" in southern Lebanon, so as to rid Hezbollah of a staging ground for rocket attacks.

Nabih Berri, President of the Lebanese Parliament and a Hezbollah spokesman, has invited Prodi's government to be "mediator" in an Italian-brokered ceasefire and prisoner exchange.