06/21/2003 Archived Entry: "The Road Map"

Charles posted this comment in a thread on LGF:

But about Bush meeting with Abu Mazen -- this really rubs me the wrong way, especially immediately after touring a death camp of which Mazen tried to deny the existence. The roadmap is doomed to failure, in my opinion, and unless there is a deeper game being played I am very disappointed that Bush is putting so much emphasis on it. No such deals should ever have been considered before substantive steps were taken on the Palestinian side to stop the terrorism and brainwashing of their children into a life of hate and violence. By proceeding with this plan, that demands no accountability for the Palestinian Arabs, we're sending exactly the wrong message to them and to the Arab world -- that terrorism pays off.

I've replied on LGF:

But about Bush meeting with Abu Mazen -- this really rubs me the wrong way, especially immediately after touring a death camp of which Mazen tried to deny the existence.

It occours to me that the two might be related. This could be part of Bush's intention to send a clear message to Abu Mazen and others that neither holocaust denial nor anti-semitism is seen as remotely reasonable or acceptable to the United States.

The roadmap is doomed to failure, in my opinion, and unless there is a deeper game being played I am very disappointed that Bush is putting so much emphasis on it.

I think that it is right to assume that Bush is playing a deeper game here. That's what Bush does. Bush went to the UN before -- it wasn't because he thought the UN was a moral authority. It also wasn't because he intended to let the UN make decisions. It was because he wanted to win dimplomatically as well as militarilly, and he succeeded brilliantly at that.

Part of resolving any conflict involves diplomacy, but not in the way the idiotarians think. They think that dimplomacy is a combination of appeasment and magically creating agreements convince everyone to dance in perfect harmony no matter who they are. In reality, it is the proccess of using threats and manipulation to get people to either help you or refrain from interfering.

I think what Bush is actually doing is a combination of trying it in case it works, and creating diplomatic circumstances that will allow force to be used more effectively if it doesn't. Even though there was very little chance of getting a second UN resolution, going to the UN for one made things easier.

The Road Map has an unprecedented chance of actually working, because Bush is much less likely than any President in history to demand unilateral concessions from Israel and look the other way when the Palestinians do nothing to prevent terrorism and incitement. He's not real big on people who try to pull the wool over his eyes.

No such deals should ever have been considered before substantive steps were taken on the Palestinian side to stop the terrorism and brainwashing of their children into a life of hate and violence.

The point of the Road Map is to create circumstances where forcing them to stop is possible. The force can either come from the Palestinian Authority with the Road Map, or it can be imposed from outside with the justification that they are not acting in good faith to meet the terms.

I don't think Bush is suffering from the all too common delusion that the Palestinians would love to stop, if only they had a state. He knows that force is going to have to come from somewhere in order to make this stop. He thinks it's possible that it could come from the Palestinian Authority if Arafat is no longer in charge.

There isn't any chance of a Palestinian state being declared before they knock this off, no matter what the UN etc think. Bush is not likely to agree that the Palestinians have met the conditions unless they actually have. Bush's interpertation is the one that matters -- all the UN does is make resolutions that no one enforces, unless the US is involved. This doesn't mean there can't be *any* Palestinian incitement and violence, but the Palestinians that would govern have to be sincerely trying to stop them and be mostly effective at it.

By proceeding with this plan, that demands no accountability for the Palestinian Arabs, we're sending exactly the wrong message to them and to the Arab world -- that terrorism pays off.

I think Bush is calling their bluff, and I don't think he intends to look the other way if, as is likely, it turns out that they were in fact bluffing. If it works, great. If it doesn't work, Bush won't expect it to work anymore, and neither will the politicians that are electable after him. Palestinian statehood is not the goal of Palestinian terrorism, and a civilized state that suppresses terror is no reward to those who perpetuate terrorism.