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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Win Smith who wrote (32410)	6/16/2002 12:23:08 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

It may be insubordination for the Joint Chiefs to demure from Wolfowitz's plans for invasions here, there, and everywhere, and Powell and the State Department are all a bunch of Chamberlainesque appeasing lackeys for presenting an opposing point of view, but King Arik has a divine right to tell W where to get off. Slight difference, Win. State and the Joint Chiefs are working for President Bush. Arik Sharon is the elected head of an independent country. Ever heard of the chain of command? What Sharon actually said was, "The time is not ripe for a Palestinian State," but you know how the NY Times editors write headlines. Egypt is also rejecting the idea, btw: Egypt rejects interim Palestinian state Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher dismissed the idea of creating a provisional Palestinian state. Such a state "might exist today but not tomorrow. It is something vague," he said, quoted today by Egypt's Middle East News Agency. It was a peculiarly half-backed idea to float in public -- what the heck is an 'interim state' supposed to mean? Don't worry, the Palestinians themselves will also reject it: The Palestinian Authority reacted with concern today to reports that the Bush administration might call for creating an interim Palestinian state while leaving uncertain its final borders and the timetable for determining them. nytimes.com If someone offers to give it to them then they know it must be a trap. The NY Times Week in Review has a good review of the incoherent mess that is Bush Mideast Policy In Mideast Diplomacy, Few Secrets or Solutions nytimes.com It includes some good name-dropping quotes: Kenneth Pollack, director for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, says the Middle East policy "seems a little like a cushion: it seems to take the shape of the last person to sit on it." Even former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, who insists the administration has "done well" on the Middle East, doesn't approve of all the public posturing. "The problem with stating a public proposition before you know what the other party is going to do is that you risk getting yourself into a public confrontation before you determine what the range of your choices is," he said. "The question is whether you want to narrow the differences before individual egos, public positions and political standing become involved." Martin Indyk (as usual) has a good summation of the current situation, explaining who has interests in making damn sure that the situation remains intractable: Shortly after Mr. Bush identified an "axis of evil" among Iraq, Iran and North Korea in his State of the Union speech, Mr. Cheney was sent to lobby Arab leaders for their understanding about the need to overthrow Mr. Hussein. By all accounts, he failed. Martin S. Indyk, who had been the American ambassador to Israel for President Bill Clinton and, early on, for Mr. Bush, said the events were connected. "All the parties in the Middle East with an interest in blocking the war on Iraq or in making sure the Palestinian issue was put on the agenda then worked together to escalate the crisis," said Mr. Indyk, who is now director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. "The steady escalation of terrorist attacks reached a crescendo when Cheney was in the region and that insured that every Arab leader he met told him, `It's the Palestinians, stupid.' "