On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 15:22:55 -0500, DSK wrote:

So why is this a priority for Bush all of a sudden?


NOYB wrote:
Because Syria is the wedge between Israeli and Palestinian peace.


And they have been for 25+ years. Why ignore that part of my post? They
were there 4 years ago and Bush ignored them. They were there 3 years
ago and Bush decided to invade Iraq instead.

Now all of a sudden, Syria... which was cooperating with US counter
terrorist intel ops... and a secure & stable secular quasi-democracy...
ruled by a progressive & pro-Western group... is on the hit list.

Getting them out of Lebanon would be nice, but it would have been nice
25 years ago. So Bush & Cheney just pulled their head out of the sand?
Or did they decide here's good material for a razzle-dazzle ploy to
distract all but the most gullible (ie you and John H) from their other
miserable foreign policy failures?

And of course, the fact that they *still* haven't caught Osama Bin
Laden, and they *still* have exactly ZERO links between Iraq & terrorism.


Why is the remote possibility of re-opening peace negotiations reckoned as
a huge success?


You're kidding, right?

No

With Arafat gone, Abbas seems to be pointing the Palestinians in a new
direction (but Hizbollah isn't cooperating).


And?

Looks to me like the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" is stuck at
about the same place it was in 1979. Each side is stuck at the same
intractable demands and the same unrealistic expectations.

It would be very nice if Abbas could reign in his terrorists, and Sharon
put a muzzle on some of his hard-liners (except that he's a har-liner
himself).

Of course I am hopeful that *this* time things will go forward, the
violence will die down, resentments will subside, and peace will have a
real chance. But it's not at all due to anything the Bush Administration
has done, and their blustering toward Syria isn't going to help either
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the anti-US terrorism in the region.
It's just a lot of hot air aimed in the wrong direction... and even if
they *were* about to accomplish something, it would be 5 years later
than they could have done the same thing.

But hey, maybe I'm too picky. Considering Bush & Cheney's record so far,
maybe this really is a huge success for them!

DSK

Personally, Doug, I find it hard to believe that you are hopeful for *any* good
to come to the middle east.

I think you, and many others around here, must pray hard for a succession of
failures. Else, how could you say, "I told you so."

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes