Its Israel, stupid

Juan Cole has an excellent reminder of the fact that Iraq may be the least of our worries and take a back seat to the continuing turmoil between Israel and the Palestinians:

A surprise for Americans: The most urgent and destabilizing crisis in the Middle East is not Iraq. It is, according to King Abdullah II of Jordan (who will meet Bush today), the Israel-Palestine conflict, which is a major engine driving the radicalization of Muslims in the Middle East and in Europe. It seldom makes the front page any more, but the Israelis are keeping the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank in Bantustan penitentiaries and bombing the ones in Gaza relentlessly, often killing signficant numbers of innocent civilians.

This really is the logical Achilles' Heel of the Bush Administrations humongous failure in the "war on terror" which, allegedly, is about, you know, actually curtailing the radicalization of the Middle East. I cannot imagine that, though cannot rule, the colossal cognitive dissonance required to keep the charade of Bush keeping us safe.

And the point about how the US press has let Israel drop off the face of the Earth shows that we just cannot trust the press corp to look out for our best interest.

Sad really.