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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Death of the Bush Doctrine |
| 2008-01-17 |
| By Jeff Jacoby The Bush Doctrine — born on Sept. 20, 2001, when President Bush bluntly warned the sponsors of violent jihad: "You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists" — is dead. Its demise was announced by Condoleezza Rice last Friday. The secretary of state was speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route with the president to Kuwait from Israel. She was explaining why the administration had abandoned the most fundamental condition of its support for Palestinian statehood - namely, an end to Palestinian terror. Rice's explanation, recounted here by The Washington Times, was as striking for its candor as for its moral blindness: "The 'road map' for peace, conceived in 2002 by Mr. Bush, had become a hindrance to the peace process, because the first requirement was that the Palestinians stop terrorist attacks. As a result, every time there was a terrorist bombing, the peace process fell apart and went back to square one. Neither side ever began discussing the 'core issues': the freezing of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the right of Palestinian refugees to return, the outline of Israel's border, and the future of Jerusalem. So Condi has bought the terrorists' line, lock, stock, and barrel. In effect she has said that Paleo terrorism against Israel is OK. And the bargaining points of Israel giving up everything for a weak promise (or something) from terrorists will work. She has legitimized the Paleo's playbook. This is really bad and destroys the moral authority of the US, too, in foreign policy. "'The reason that we haven't really been able to move forward on the peace process for a number of years is that we were stuck in the sequentiality of the road map. So you had to do the first phase of the road map before you moved on to the third phase of the road map, which was the actual negotiations of final status,' Rice said. . . . What the US-hosted November peace summit in Annapolis did was 'break that tight sequentiality. . . You don't want people to get hung up on settlement activity or the fact that the Palestinians haven't fully been able to deal with the terrorist infrastructure. . .'" She should be a good lobbyist for them after she leaves office in January, 2009. I am beginning to feel physically sick..... Thus the president who once insisted that a "Palestinian state will never be created by terror" now insists that a Palestinian state be created regardless of terror. Once the Bush administration championed a "road map" whose first and foremost requirement was that the Palestinians "declare an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism" and shut down "all official . . . incitement against Israel." Now the administration says that Palestinian terrorism and incitement are nothing "to get hung up on." Whatever happened to the moral clarity that informed the president's worldview in the wake of 9/11? Whatever happened to the conviction that was at the core of the Bush Doctrine: that terrorists must be anathematized and defeated, and the fever-swamps that breed them drained and detoxified? Like the Pak NWFP, the new Afghanistan Taliban base, or Gaza, another terrorist base? Bush's support for the creation of a Palestinian state was always misguided — rarely has a society shown itself *less* suited for sovereignty — but at least he made it clear that American support came at a stiff price: "The United States will not support the establishment of a Palestinian state," Bush said in his landmark June 2002 speech on the Israeli-Arab conflict, "until its leaders engage in a sustained fight against the terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure." He reinforced that condition two years later, confirming in a letter to Ariel Sharon that "the Palestinian leadership must act decisively against terror, including sustained, targeted, and effective operations to stop terrorism and dismantle terrorist capabilities and infrastructure." So, in a weird, perverted way, the President is working alongside the terrorists in the destruction of Israel on the installment plan. The Paleos crank out a bit of takiya, and the President takes the baited hook, in that vain reach for Legacy™. If you want a good legacy, you have to do your homework. Cramming doesn't work. Now that policy has gone by the boards, replaced by one less focused on achieving peace than on maintaining a "peace process." No doubt it *is* difficult, as Rice says, to "move forward on the peace process" when the Palestinian Authority glorifies suicide bombers and encourages a murderous yearning to eliminate the Jewish state. If the Bush Doctrine — "with us or with the terrorists" — were still in force, the peace process would have been shelved once the Palestinians made clear that they had no intention of rejecting violence or accepting Israel's existence. The administration would be treating the Palestinians as pariahs, allowing them no assistance of any kind, much less movement toward statehood, so long as their encouragement of terrorism persisted. But it is the Bush Doctrine that has been shelved. In its hunger for Arab support against Iran — and perhaps in a quest for a historic "legacy" — the administration has dropped "with us or with the terrorists." It is hellbent instead on bestowing statehood upon a regime that stands unequivocally with the terrorists. "Frankly, it's time for the establishment of a Palestinian state," Rice says. When George W. Bush succeeded Bill Clinton, he was determined not to replicate his predecessor's blunders in the Middle East, a determination that intensified after 9/11. Yet he too has succumbed to the messianism that leads US presidents to imagine they can resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Clinton's legacy in this arena was the second intifada, which drenched the region in blood. To what fresh hell will Bush's diplomacy lead? |
| Posted by:Alaska Paul |
| #7 rjs: Seems Camp David just exchanged Soviet money for US money at the time Sadat realized he couldn't beat the Israeli's anyway. It was a dumb deal. Nope. Egypt got more than that - it got the Sinai back. Without the Sinai smuggling routes, I wonder whether the first intifada could have gotten off the ground. Note that this agreement was a Begin-Sadat show - they just needed Uncle Sam to sign the checks. I feel sorry for the Israelis, but they're big boys. Eventually, if they want to make their own decisions instead of having to defer to affirmative action appointees like Rice, they will have to stand on their own two feet. That means weaning themselves off US aid. For good. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2008-01-17 23:02 |
| #6 what has happened to Bush?? Did aliens suck his soul from his body? I read today that his administration filed a brief (or whatever) defending the DC gun ban. Bush...bush...what happened to you? |
| Posted by: Whomong Guelph4611 2008-01-17 21:39 |
| #5 What would happen if the US said we would not give on red cent to anybody neighboring Israel. Pals, Jordan, Egypt, until they put a muzzle on the Pals and ended this nonsense and reconquered Gaza and West Bank to end the Pal branch of the Death Cult. Seems Camp David just exchanged Soviet money for US money at the time Sadat realized he couldn't beat the Israeli's anyway. It was a dumb deal. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2008-01-17 20:32 |
| #4 TMK Israel hasn't dropped its tenet that the PA must demonstrate its worth to any future Pals State and Israeli-Pals relations by de facto controlling and stopping rocket attacks and terror agz Israel. E.g. HAMAS [JPOST/HAARETZ]> Israel will NOT stop its penetrations into GAZA until HAMAS = HAMAS-domin PA stops the rocket fire emanating from Gaza. ISRAEL IS REDUX ITS MIL PRESENCE IN GAZA-WB, NOT ITS ABILITY TO UNILATER MILPOL INTERVENE IN PA AFFAIRS, AND WON'T UNTIL THE PA PROVES IT CAN DE FACTO CONTROL ANY AND ALL ASPECTS OF A FUTURE PALS STATE + POPULATION. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-01-17 18:51 |
| #3 Rice upsets me so much I can't even comment. Virtually everything she gets involved in is screwed up. Gawd, I wish Colin Powell was still running State. |
| Posted by: Woozle Elmeter 2907 2008-01-17 17:13 |
| #2 "The 'road map' for peace, conceived in 2002 by Mr. Bush, had become a hindrance to the peace process, because the first requirement was that the Palestinians stop terrorist attacks. I always knew Condi was a product of affirmative action, now we have proof. Bush and his administration of half wits have been a disaster. |
| Posted by: Angeager Barnsmell6422 2008-01-17 16:47 |
| #1 Bush Doctrine never applied to Israel. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2008-01-17 15:55 |