Wretchard at the Belmont Club notes that an upcoming Arab League Summit in Tunisia has been cancelled, signalling Arab reluctance to take a stand on the assassination of Sheik Yassin.
Clearly the old formula of rechanneling domestic unrest by tacitly supporting anti-Americanism has reached the end of its usefulness to the Middle Easter[n] tyrants. Or rather, it has reached the logical conclusion whose consequences they must now endure.Neither Europe's old game of triangulation -- a grand name for unscrupulous scavenging -- nor the Middle Eastern ploy of making America both guarantor and enemy can be continued for much longer. Even if Sharon is ousted from the Israeli leadership, developments since September 11 have doomed the ancien regime. The old elite is out of moves.
But whatever has been gained by Bush's "big mistake" that so offends the sensibilities of the Copperheads had already begun to soften before this cancellation, as a result of Richard Clarke's big score.
According to White House archives President Bush had held nearly sequential meetings with G8 leaders in 2003 (June 1 and 2) before flying to the Middle East to meet with Middle Eastern leaders (June 3). His Arab host on that occasion was -- Hosni Mubarak -- the very man who is now [unsuccessfully it turns out] salvaging the Arab summit. It is possible that the Middle Eastern leaders, then quaking in the immediate aftermath of Baghdad's fall, should have then proposed a deal to be sealed a year hence.But what must have seemed a commutation from certain execution [a deal that would have inaugurated a Middle East reform movement to end the ancien regime] may now look like a bad deal. Efforts by the Left to hamstring Bush and the possibility of his defeat at Kerry's hands has opened an escape hatch.
Confusion has its cost.
Posted by Demosophist at March 29, 2004 11:01 PM | TrackBack