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July 2007 Stats for The Big Picture.
I had high hopes for Condi. But this can't be explained favorably: she's signed onto the disastrous "land-for-peace" policy, that has been demonstrated to fail since the Oslo accords.
On the first day of her Middle East tour, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday signed a joint statement with Egypt, Jordan and six Persian Gulf states, endorsing the 2002 Arab peace initiative as one of the foundations for Middle East peace.
Visiting the region with Rice is Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
The initiative offers Israel normalized relations with all Arab countries in return for full withdrawal from the territory Israel captured in 1967.
The absurd land-for-peace strategy practically has billboards advertising it as a failure, in the form of rockets lobbed onto Israel from Gaza as a result of the last time Israel gave away land per this foolish strategy.
The reason the strategy doesn't work is that the Islamists don't want the peace and they don't want the land. They want to destroy the state of Israel. Cutting up pieces of Israel and giving them away to the Islamists is like telling a robber that you'll make a deal, that if you give him 10 bucks, he won't take the rest of the money in your wallet.
Can Condi be deluding herself, after decades of proof to the contrary, that such a strategy makes sense? The answer appears to be found in an insight provided last February by Bruce Hershensohn:
...The State Dept. believes that they are the permanent government of the United States. They believe that Presidents are a nuisance -- a temporary nuisance that they can put up with. They can put up with them for 4 to 8 years, and then they're gone. The State Department believes in stability -- not in liberty. They believe that Patrick Henry said, "Give me stability or give me death."
This is likely the explanation. Condi's been captured by the culture of the State department. She doesn't care if Israel is destroyed. She doesn't care if she's rewarding those who make war specifically for the purpose of destroying a U.S. ally and a U.N. member nation.
All she wants is short-term peace.
It's a narrow, limited vision, that is conducive to long-term tragedy.
