[Apolitical]

A chilling reminder for all friends of liberty.

[Jethro Tull]

With today's suicide bombing in Israel, Sharon's "foreign policy" also is in the hopper...

[hobbes1]

Which Part of giving Sharon a Long Leash, yet distancing himself from the carnage, do you and the author not understand.....

[Whilom]

Give a little time for this "muddled" policy to play out and I think we'll see the reasons for it. The U.S. intends to "change the regime" in Iraq. We can probably manage that "going it alone," but our efforts in that direction can be far more effective by gaining regional support, or at least a measure of acquiescence. Secretary of State Powell's job is to use honeyed words and inferences to demonstrate that the U.S. can be a partner to moderate Arab states while pursuing this war on terrorism. Meanwhile, President Bush has given the Israeli government the time it needs to strike at the root and branch of Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank. We continue to lend large material support to the Israelis. It is not the destruction of Israel through "appeasement" that powers American initiatives but the preservation of Israel while continuing to work with moderate Arab states in the vital effort against Saddam and the constellations of terrorism in the region. Those are very difficult, and often apparently conflicting goals. They are not mutually exclusive. The long-term possibilities (about how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will work out) are impossible to measure, but the course of American policy now, as in the past, is to help Israelis preserve their nation.