Drilling a Hole in the Lifeboat

What would you do if your foreign policy agenda had these priorities:

1. Get Arab and European support for solving the Iraq crisis.
2. Mobilize Arab and European forces against a threat led by Iran and its allies, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah.
3. Get Iran to stop its campaign to get nuclear weapons.
4. Reestablish American credibility toward friends and deterrence toward enemies.
5. Reduce the level of Israel-Palestinian conflict.

That pretty much describes the U.S. framework for dealing with the Middle East nowadays. The Annapolis conference is did not contribute to any of these goals. The outcome is a failure or at least a non-event portrayed as a victory because it took place at all. And yet, nobody is saying: 'We are so grateful at the United States becoming more active on Arab-Israeli issues that we are going to back its policy on other issues.'

On the contrary,...

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