A Brilliant Disguise?

Pause for a moment to consider that perhaps the Bush administration's recent diplomatic efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian situation were nothing but a mirage designed to placate more moderate elements in the administration and silence the critics who had accused the president of doing nothing to resolve the conflict. Bush has been hammered by some conservatives of late for what they consider his abandonment of support for Israel and for being hypocritical for pursuing terrorists in Afghanistan while calling for Israel to refrain from doing the same in the West Bank. But despite the fact that publicly the Bush administration through Powell was saying that Israel "must" stop the incursions in the West Bank and withdraw immediately the Israelis continued to carry out military operations for several days. That leads me to believe that the public call for Israel to cease and desist did not match what the administration privately communicated to the Israelis. I imagine that private communication to be something along the lines of "In order to calm our Arab friends and the Europeans down we're going to have to call on you to withdraw from the West Bank. And we're going to have send Powell over to make it look like we're trying to be fair to both sides. But we know that you gotta do what you gotta do."

After Powell left the region without being able to secure a cease fire critics labeled the trip a failure. But no one can now say that the administration didn't make an effort. In fact Powell seemed to go out of his way near the end of his stay to lay most of the blame on Arafat labeling him as the main obstacle to peace. Meanwhile the Israelis were allowed many fruitful days of activities to roust out terrorists, seize rockets, bombs, and other weapons, and throw the Palestinian groups into chaos. Capturing one of the most wanted Palestinian leaders didn't hurt either. It certainly won't stop the terror in the long run but it might have been enough to buy themselves some breathing room and time. The US too has bought some time and perhaps managed to avoid having the conflict escalating out of control. A few months of relative quiet in the region could be used to finalize our plans to deal with Iraq. Trying to solve the Iraqi problem when the powder keg in the West Bank seems just about blow would not be possible. But with the Palestinians on their heels we may have a window to carry out a swift and successful operation against Iraq that will be the first step to achieving a long term peace for the entire region including the Israelis and Palestinians.