We’re Confused
Why now? Why, at the moment the world is ready, grudgingly or hopefully, for the U.S. to force Iraqi compliance with the demands of the UN did the President use a Rose Garden moment to boost the “Road Map” for Israeli-Arab “peace”? Why those words? “Settlement activity in the occupied territories” is a red flag for Israel.
Until the latest tape, the U.S. had warned against broadcasting messages purportedly from Osama Bin Laden for fear that there were “embedded messages” in them – instructions to terrorists who would understand prearranged signals to undertake operations.
Why now? Why, at the moment the world is ready, grudgingly or hopefully, for the U.S. to force Iraqi compliance with the demands of the UN did the President use a Rose Garden moment to boost the “Road Map” for Israeli-Arab “peace”? Why those words? “Settlement activity in the occupied territories” is a red flag for Israel.
Until the latest tape, the U.S. had warned against broadcasting messages purportedly from Osama Bin Laden for fear that there were “embedded messages” in them – instructions to terrorists who would understand prearranged signals to undertake operations.
Maybe that’s what the President was doing. Using code words to signal to the Arab states upon which we rely for an attack on Iraq that we are aware of their priorities.
Maybe it was a sop to the EU, the UN and Russia – our “partners” in the Quartet from which the Road Map emanates. None is a partner in disarming Iraq, but perhaps the President wanted them to understand that they could still be partners in other endeavors. [This possibility makes us gag, but it is, nevertheless, a possibility.]
Maybe he was offering an extra measure of cover to British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw – a virulently anti-Israel politician whose nastiness toward Jerusalem has been shoved under the covers because his boss is on the side of the angels as regards Iraq.
Maybe, too, there was a signal for Israel – the President clearly laid on the Arab states a measure of obligation. “And the Arab states must oppose terrorism, support the emergence of a peaceful and democratic Palestine, and state clearly that they will live in peace with Israel.” Arab governments like to call it the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, so they can avoid blame and hard decisions, but the President didn’t let them.
If the President was signaling the beginning of the end of Saddam’s arsenal, and those who were intended to understand the signals indeed understood them, it’s OK with us if we don’t understand them. We are willing to be confused for the greater good.
But we sincerely hope that the President was not signaling that America will begin new and possibly dangerous dabbling in an Arab-Israeli “peace process” before – or instead of – the disarmament of Iraq. We have laid down America’s marker on Saddam. It would be foolish and shortsighted to be diverted now.
And it is worth remembering that just as Saddam can probably still forestall American action by strict adherence to UN Resolutions regarding his arsenal, so too can the Arab states choose any day to meet the obligations of UN Resolution 242 for the “termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”