I think the old-style foreign policy was a Rube Goldberg elaborate mix of intertwining interests that could stand some shaking up. Perhaps a "bull in a China shop" is what is needed to replace some of the inventory of our foreign policy.
-PJ
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
Richard Boucher, Spokesman
Washington, DC; September 27, 2001
...
QUESTION: To what extent does this campaign -- as you constantly review your Middle East policy, what -- how much influence does this campaign against terrorism have in that? What's the input? How does it weigh in here? See what I mean?
MR. BOUCHER: No, I don't.
QUESTION: It's obviously a factor --
MR. BOUCHER: We have talked about this on and off over the last few days. We recognize that there is an influence. Some have said it affects the atmosphere, the Palestinian/Israeli issues affect the atmosphere of cooperation. But, essentially, there are, on some planes, two different things. One is that there are violent people trying to destroy societies, ours, many others in the world. The world recognizes that and we are going to stop those people.
On the other hand, there are issues and violence and political issues that need to be resolved in the Middle East, Israelis and Palestinians. But we all recognize that the path to solve those is through negotiation and that we have devoted enormous efforts to getting back to that path of negotiation.
And we have called on the parties to do everything they can, particularly in the present circumstance, to make that possible.
I guess that's about as close as I can come to the kind of sophisticated analysis I'm sure you will want to do on your own. But they are clearly issues that are different, not only in geography but also, to some extent, in their nature.
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