Negotiating with Hamas, but for the wrong reason?

Whether to advance a peace agreement leading to a Palestinian state or to consolidate the status quo, an Israeli government will probably be talking to Hamas before too long.

Twenty years ago, Israeli law prohibited any Israeli citizen from contact with the Palestine Liberation. As Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir put it, talking to the PLO would lead to the unacceptable establishment of a Palestinian state. And center-left politicians, including Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres agreed. So when Rabin became the PM and Peres his Foreign Minister, they pursued indirect contacts with the PLO precisely because they had realized that a separate Palestinian state was indispensable to Israel's long-term stability.

Today, the idea of "a PLO state bordering Israel" sounds pretty bad, but it remains the official preference of the Government of Israel... even if the actions of Israel's current leadership seem to be making that outcome progressively less likely. When President Ronald Reagan authorized the U.S. Government to talk directly with the PLO 24 years ago, the PLO was still on the State Department's list of Foreign Terror Organizations -- as is Hamas today.

But it was still the Cold War, PLO leader Yasir Arafat had met the specific conditions the United States had pledged to Israel, and Vice-President George H.W. Bush had already won the election to succeed the departing Reagan. There was little Israel or American Jewish organizations could do beyond calling for strict controls. Within five years, partly thanks to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and serious strong-arming by then-Secretary of State James A. Baker III, the Bush administration helped set the stage for the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Today, the memory of Hamas terror is constantly refreshed by new attacks on Israeli civilians, and Hamas leaders speak regularly of destroying Israel. The PLO once acted the same way, and that bitter legacy will never be erased. And yet, the Oslo Accords were signed between Israel and the PLO, and PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas is generally seen as the best chance for a moderate Palestinian leader willing to make a final deal with Israel.

Condemning Palestinian statehood won't help Israel

The United Nations General Assembly will vote today to accord Palestine upgraded Observer status as a non-member state. Had the U.S. Congress been more supportive of the Oslo process following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, had the international community exerted more pressure on Yasser Arafat, had Shimon Peres called earlier elections to capture the Rabin sympathy vote, had President George W. Bush not insisted on early elections in Gaza that put Hamas legally in charge there, this might have happened ten years ago, and with full membership for Palestine. But that's not what happened.

So today, on the anniversary of the UN's 1947 Palestine Partition plan, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is calling on the UN to recognize Palestine as a state. Some of the normal prerequisites for statehood status remain unfulfilled: There are no permanent, recognized, demarcated borders; the territory is ruled by two different governments; and the terms of the Oslo Accords mandate the Palestinian and Israeli sides to cooperate and agree on final status, including statehood.

But realistically, Oslo has been dead for several years, and certainly since President Bush backed off serious efforts to facilitate progress between the two parties. Realizing this, Ehud Olmert, Israel's Prime Minister at the time, continued his own regular meetings with Abbas and even followed through on Ariel Sharon's planned unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. And today, Olmert himself is backing the Palestinian bid. For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done little to back up his public calls for Abbas to return to the negotiating table, while expanding Jewish settlements across the West Bank and empowering Hamas while generally ignoring Abbas.

Especially following the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas, and the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, Abbas needs to proceed with today's vote. He needs to show something to remain relevant, and Israelis who retain any hope for eventual peace should realize that they need Abbas to succeed over Hamas, in the West Bank as well as Gaza.

While today's vote is not a vote against the existence of Israel, it definitely has an element of rejecting Israeli settlement expansion and U.S. neglect of proactive diplomacy. There are no guarantees, and today's vote may be ill-timed. And it will be used by Iran and others to cynically advance their campaign to isolate Israel diplomatically and otherwise. But the Palestinians will get their way today, albeit without the support of Israel or the United States. Given this reality, where do we go from here?

Israel and the United States have already decided to downplay the statehood status. This is more constructive than just cursing the darkness, but far from lighting a match. A year ago, the last time Palestinian statehood was being advanced at the UN, I blogged on how much easier it would be for Netanyahu to just work on peace negotiations with Abbas, both substantively and tactically as a way to undermine or forestall any statehood effort.

Even Netanyahu, and his coalition partners who more openly reject any territorial compromise, can reap some advantage from today's fait accompli. They can begin treating Abbas as the leader of a state -- not with ticker-tape parades through Tel Aviv, but by signing more formal agreements from economic relations to security cooperation and holding him more accountable for results. They can play up his role as the internationally recognized leader rather than giving Hamas more opportunities to escalate tensions and overshadow Abbas.

We can also use this as an opportunity to get more economic development and investment into the West Bank, by calling on European governments voting "yes" on statehood to put their money where their mouths are. Any effort to penalize Abbas for pushing the statehood issue will further erode his credibility and that of the peaceful path (Hamas has shown that terrorism gets better play with Israel). Israel needs a strong, vibrant, secure and prosperous Palestinian neighbor, and this is according to Prime Minister Netanyahu himself.

Jewish organizations should feel free to condemn and criticize today's vote, but afterward they should also be held to account. If we as a community reject unilateral measures, and we claim that today's vote undermines the path of direct negotiations and a two-state solution, what will we be doing in 2013 to achieve that oft-stated goal? Are we willing to back up our own rhetoric with candid advice to Israeli leaders, with our own funds to support Israeli-Palestinian cooperative enterprises, and to promote genuine dialogue and engagement between Jews and Palestinians?

As Jews prepare to celebrate Chanukah, the Festival of Lights, we should consider whether we will continue to curse the darkness, just keep quiet, or start lighting flames to brighten the room we call the Middle East. If we as a community are not up to that task, then silence may be the best answer going forward. Merely paying lip service to a "two-state solution" can no longer help Israel or the Palestinians, and it won't stop Iran from achieving nuclear-blackmail capability.

Benghazi worse than Watergate? GOP would know.

A terrible series of events transpired last month in Benghazi, Libya. As we all know, the U.S. Ambassador and three other U.S. personnel were killed in an organized, deliberate attack on the Consulate there.

In the days following the attack,  many questions and allegations were launched against the White House, largely by the increasingly right-wing Republican House of Representatives back in Washington and its media ally, Fox News. Why didn't President Obama immediately label the incident as a terrorist attack? Why did the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations initially suggest the Benghazi attack was connected to an anti-U.S. protest march when -- as we eventually learned -- there was no protest, only the stand-alone attack? Why did the State Department not supply more security forces as had been requested by post? And so on.

While it took days for the GOP's political and media establishment to fully gear up in this very timely cause, Governor Mitt Romney was framing Benghazi as an indictment against the entire foreign policy of President Barack Obama, even as recovery operations were still underway. He was definitely ahead of the curve on using this as a political weapon.

Ironically, the Benghazi attack -- which cost us the lives of four brave Americans -- pales in comparison to unspeakably catastrophic tragedies like the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington (2,800+ dead); the 2005 Hurricane Katrina (1,800+ dead); Operation Iraqi Freedom (nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers dead). Each of these death tolls can be in large or small part attributed to incompetent and/or ideologically forced decision-making by President George W. Bush and his advisers. And, by the way, banging the war drums and beating an apologetic retreat whenever necessary has been none other than Fox News. Yet in the years that have followed, almost no one has faced any official or political consequences for any of these failures (unless receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom counts).

And now, Fox News' own Brit Hume is feeling righteous enough to point out that "it has fallen to this news organization, Fox News, and a couple of others to do all the heaving lifting" on exposing the as yet unproven allegations of Benghazi wrongdoing and cover-up by the Obama administration.

There are definitely important lessons to be learned and applied going forward, and possibly careers to be ended. And it is never too late to start holding our government leaders accountable on national security. But if Republican politicians and journalists are going to lead the way on this, it would be nice of them to at least acknowledge the novelty, rather than acting like turning four deaths into Obama's Watergate -- or even WORSE than Watergate (and maybe Vietnam, too?) -- is not transparently political and contrived.

Rushing to blame, Romney disgraces us all

The attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions in Egypt and Libya have reinforced the sense of danger and uncertainty in the Middle East, and should spark a renewed -- and ideally bipartisan -- about how the United States can continue to repair its influence and effect lasting stability in this often chaotic region.

Even before we could know the extent of brutality and barbarism involved in the lynching of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens -- let alone all the other facts and factors involved --  the Republican Party Chairman and the Republican nominee for President were rushing to blame President Obama's "failed" policies for these outrageous assaults on the honor and person of American diplomacy.

Leading the pile-on were many of my friends from the right wing of the Jewish, pro-Israel community. Had Obama only listened to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and shown him more respect while showering Israel with unprecedented military support and security cooperation, none of this would have happened. Ironically, this came hours after the eleventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks -- despite President George W. Bush's uncompromising and single-minded campaign against Saddam Hussein. Even more ironically, these attacks came nearly a year to the day since Israel's own ambassador to Egypt was nearly lynched by a Cairo mob -- and only saved through the personal intervention of... President Obama. What a way to say thank you.

Time to wake up to Obama's hard line on Iran... or not.

Most of the remaining Republican candidates for President made visits to the recent AIPAC Policy Conference, forcefully decrying President Obama's presumed failure to take seriously Iran's threat to Israel's security. In fact, the Obama administration has enacted a series of tough measures unilaterally, led the United Nations Security Council to adopt a succession of unprecedented sanctions against the Islamic Republic, and pushed a hard line in major international fora including the International Atomic Energy Agency. Both in purpose and in result, President Obama has been more committed to actually stopping Iran's nuclear program than any predecessor, including George the Tsadik, ie., former President George W. Bush (43).

Having recently refocused my career onto more domestic policy issues, I was not able to attend this year's AIPAC events. But I imagine the Republican candidates were all welcomed with ecstatic applause for each of their admonishments against the President. While that is a shame, and a farce, I do not think it will change the President's own commitment to doing what it takes to stop Iran -- and that includes NOT broadcasting military intentions while sanctions and international support are still in the balance.

Time for Netanyahu to choose on Iran

It's time for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop playing games and talking tough, and start talking some sense into the biggest crowd ever to attend an AIPAC Policy Conference. The United States can afford to have "daylight" between itself and the State of Israel. With Egypt and Syria going down the tubes, and Iran tightening up its regime, the State of Israel does not enjoy that same luxury. If the threat to Israel is severe enough for Netanyahu to be lobbying his own cabinet and the White House for a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, it ought to be worth dropping the vendetta against President Barack Obama -- even if, in the Likud narrative, Obama 'started it'.

If Netanyahu's initial response to Obama's Sunday speech to AIPAC is any indication (he "appreciated" Obama's SPEECH without mentioning anything about his DEEDS), his own address there will reflect pro-forma pleasantries about Obama's support for Israel's military edge and something about sanctions against Iran, interspersed with applause lines about Israel not compromising on its security and not relying on promises from anyone -- ANYONE. The problem is, Israel actually needs those promises -- especially from the United States, especially now -- and no one with any expertise on these matters believes that Israel can destroy Iran's nuclear program on its own. Even if an Israeli strike could neutralize Iran's capabilities, it could still ignite a major Middle East conflict in which Israel will need every friend it still has after the collapse of peace talks with the Palestinians and Jewish settlements on steroids.

A responsible Israeli leader should ADMONISH the same disciplined, gung-ho AIPAC crowd that applauded reluctantly -- yet again -- for the U.S. President who has been standing up for Israel, and who will have to stand up for Israel when it really counts (think Richard Nixon in 1973). The pro-Israel community, including all those who will vote ABO (anybody but Obama) next November, needs to hear that there is no daylight between the two countries, and that suggesting otherwise undermines the security and the survival of the Jewish people. And they need to believe it.

Mission Accomplished... does Libya count?

I wasn't planning to shout from the rooftops over the success of President Obama's smart-power strategy in Libya, though I had blogged early this year that Libya was an opportunity for him. Not a confounding challenge, like Iraq or Afghanistan, or Egypt or Syria, but nevertheless an opportunity to turn a fresh page, at least back to the limited-engagement days of Clinton and Bush (remember 41?). This may not have been a slam dunk, but let's at least give the President credit for a good rebound shot.

Six months ago, back when I first posted on this, lots of Republicans seemed to be goading the President into invading Libya. The disappointment was palpable when he threw in with our NATO allies and let them do most of the work -- with no ground invasion, and with limited firepower after the first days of giving the rebels a head start. And in the end, it's been estimated that the entire Libya engagement cost Washington less than $1 billion -- no casualties, no PTSD -- and far less than the cost of one day in Iraq after Bush's "Mission Accomplished" stunt.

Later, the Republicans' spent blood lust turned into anger that the imperial imperialist (Obama) needed to invoke the War Powers Act, even though President Bush (43) had invaded Iraq with only a vague contingency resolution from Congress, and in Libya no U.S. ground forces were committed. A few of my Republican friends have suddenly informed me they never even liked Bush's whole "democracy-building" agenda. Oh.

"Responsibility" should have consequences

Perhaps Representative Anthony Weiner really didn't "betray" his constituents, but he has said he did and he has accepted full responsibility for his actions. If he means that, then he will have to resign. There's no way to take responsibility for betraying one's constituents -- one's employers -- without resigning. 

Weiner's acts, though creepy, are far less than some actual crimes allegedly committed by other politicians, including Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) who remains in the U.S. Senate four years after showing up on the customer records of the infamous "DC Madam". That unfortunate woman, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, took her own life less than a year later, and Senator Vitter won reelection. Louisiana... I get it.

Referring to the Iraq War, back in 2007, President George W. Bush said, "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me." And yet, the only individuals who lost their jobs over Iraq were the Army General who predicted we'd need more troops than the President initially committed and some mid-level officials implicated in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. As for the 9/11 attack on our nation, which defined the Bush Presidency as well as the 2008 candidacy of Rudy Giuliani, I know of no Bush administration official who lost his or her job as a result of failing to prevent the worst attack on U.S. soil in the last 150 years. "Mission Accomplished"... NOT.

When President Obama learned that Air Force One and military jets had been flown at low altitude over Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty for a photo op -- without coordinating with alarmed local government and law enforcement -- he fired the White House official who should have known better. Had President Bush applied the same standard to those who failed their duties on 9/11 and in the planning and prosecution of the Iraq invasion...

Representative Weiner did take some responsibility for his scandalous and inappropriate actions -- though incompletely -- and he did submit to the questions of an eager press corps on live TV. He has reportedly entered some psychiatric facility for treatment of his compulsions. His decision window is still open, even though it's wider than our typical six-hour news cycle. 

The saddest aspect to the Weiner affair, and to most of our political scandals and policy failures, is that there is no responsibility or accountability, nor any consequences, for the actions of public officials. Taking "full responsibility" has become an empty figure of speech, as "With all due respect," or "Have a nice day." I don't need a shopkeeper to mean it when telling me, "Y'all come back now." But I would like elected officials to stand behind their statements of accountability. Call me old fashioned. 

Israelis should wish Obama well in Europe

For which audience did President Obama tailor last Thursday's long speech on the Middle East? Of course, Arabs were interested in how Obama might meet the seismic changes rippling across the Middle East, but it's been a long time since they stopped taking speeches seriously. And they're hardly waiting on Washington's green light to take to the streets and fight for their rights. 

Israelis seem not to mind that their Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was doing nothing substantive to promote meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians even before the Fatah-Hamas merger. Netanyahu had been using House Speaker John Boehner to get his own Capitol Hill pep rally and one-up the President, so Obama pulled rank and moved up his own Mideast speech to the day before his own meeting with Netanyahu. But mutual spite still doesn't impact a major Presidential speech. Obama must know the peace process is going nowhere for a while, so what impact could he hope to make with such a speech?

One audience that could be useful to the President is the Europeans, whom he will be visiting this coming week. Nearly all the Western European nations were already signed up to support Palestinian statehood next September at the United Nations. Then, in a belated tribute to the efforts of Hosni Mubarak, Hamas and Fatah agreed to try out a reconciliation. Almost immediately, the Europeans made clear they wouldn't support the declaration of statehood if the new Palestine embraced the rejectionist, terrorist Hamas. So Hamas started intimating its readiness to accept further negotiations with Israel... possibly just enough to keep the Europeans hanging on.

Can't the media let Bush be modest? (No.)

Once again, the "news" media seem to have no patience for real news to come their way, as if the operation to get Osama Bin Laden and its aftermath are not pressing enough. Since Tuesday, the hot subplot has been former President George W. Bush reportedly declining President Obama's invitation to join him when he visits Ground Zero on Thursday in New York.

President Bush is trying to be a gentleman and defer to the current sitting President, and the press pervert that gesture and use it to upstage President Obama's military success and his effort to provide some closure for thousands of 9/11 survivors and millions of Americans. Bravo!!

Shortly after President Obama announced the killing of Osama, George W. Bush issued a brief, magnanimous and patriotic statement praising the operation, U.S. forces, and the President. Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader and former Speaker -- and one of Bush's prime adversaries on Capitol Hill -- called the former President to thank him for his leadership in the cause that culminated in Sunday's dramatic operation. Since he left the White House, Bush has avoided politics and public roles, which is why he decided against accompanying the President to Ground Zero. He did partner with Bill Clinton to help the victims of last year's devastating earthquake in Haiti, because President Obama asked him and because a million or more lives were hanging in the balance.

Do the press really expect Bush to take a victory lap around Ground Zero? Do they really think Bush is being petulant by not joining Obama on a solemn occasion?

Fatah-Hamas deal is a defeat, but no orphan

Now that Fatah and Hamas have reached an initial reconciliation, there's little room left to pile on the wave of condemnations against Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for even thinking of such a deal. Hamas is definitely reprehensible, but it also controls Gaza, partly thanks to an over-zealous, pro-democracy President named George W. Bush. For so long, we Israel supporters have pointed out that Abbas cannot speak for Gaza when he negotiates for peace. And yet, now that they are consolidating, it is objectively worse for stability and for reconciliation with the Israelis. 

That fact should not distract us from the glaring truth: That it was easier for Abbas to find common ground with religious extremists bent on mass murder -- and who have ritualistically massacred Fatah fighters in cold blood -- than with the democratic and enlightened State of Israel.

Wow. Talk about a dramatic put-down.

In reality, there has always been a faction within Hamas that seeks not only to destroy Israel and murder Jews, but also to be a player in any eventual settlement with Israel and the resulting Palestinian state. This does not mean Israel should let its guard down, but it also means there may be a light at the end of the tunnel... a long tunnel.

Will the real "deficit hawks" please stand up?

I have no problem with Republicans espousing their tax cuts doctrine, as long as they don't call themselves "deficit hawks". The term "hawk" implies an uncompromising commitment to a single doctrine, which in this case is directly cutting the deficit -- the current cost of federal operations -- above all else. Even if the "trickle-down" model were realistic, by definition it makes no direct dent in the deficit -- it increases the deficit without reducing the burden on those hardest working and hardest hit. 

Those who argue there's no better time for tax cuts favoring wealthier Americans do have a legitimate theory, albeit one that has never been proven. After all, when have high-income tax cuts actually fueled a sustained economic recovery? Economic stimulus, on the other hand, has always generated economic activity, jobs, and consumer confidence. Deficit-funded economic stimulus has also been proven to restore economic balance.

It was a Republican President, George W. Bush, who pushed us into unprecedented deficits and unprecedented tax concessions to the wealthiest 1-2 percent of Americans. And now, finally, Republicans are complaining about big deficits...

The rhetoric of Republican leaders makes clear that a real goal is to further enrich wealthy Americans and private businesses, period. And to shut down the poster children of liberal politics -- Planned Parenthood, the Environmental Protection Agency, health coverage, et al. 

Most mystifying of all, millions of hard-working, middle-class Americans support tax cuts as revealed word. And they support the right of corporations to pay negligible taxes and employee benefits while engaging in unlimited opaque campaign spending to ensure the election of friendly legislators. The diminution of representative democracy is not good for America (which should be our number-one concern), nor is it good for most Americans -- at least, not if real household income has anything to do with it. 

It's bad enough that politicians use their influence to discredit and block proven economic first aid. But cloaking it in terms of cutting the deficit -- even while pushing it higher without measurable benefit to most Americans -- is simply audacious.

Welcome to MST - Mideast Saving Time

Recent incidents in and around Israel have been driven primarily by local factors, but the sweeping drama elsewhere in the region has eclipsed what might otherwise have been sharp reactions in the West.

The barbaric attack on a Jewish family in the West Bank settlement of Itamar prompted Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to announce hundreds of new housing units over the pre-1967 Green Line. The attack could have been an effort to remind Israelis and the world that Palestinians are dangerous, even when Muammar Qaddafi seems to be hogging the title of Mideast menace, but more likely this was just the one successful terrorist mission of the many that Israeli forces thwart almost on a daily basis. The same set of factors can explain the latest Jerusalem bombing attack.

The fact that Washington and even the United Nations were distracted with the momentous jockeying over international Libyan intervention – and that U.S. President Barack Obama has accepted for now that Netanyahu is unwilling or incapable of acting more constructively than his Palestinian counterparts – meant that little notice was taken of the massacre or the Israeli response.

Rocket strikes from Hamas-ruled Gaza against civilian targets deep inside Israel may have been meant to test the new security regime between Israel and a still rudderless Egyptian regime, as well as showing that Gaza can be at least as dangerous as the West Bank – a headline grabber. If Netanyahu’s response to the Itamar attack was knee-jerk and politically calculated, the mobilization against Gaza was obvious and unavoidable. The State of Israel must be able to protect its citizens.

When my friends complain that the murder in Itamar of both parents and three of their young children got next to no coverage in the American press, they are mistaken. However, it was understandably overshadowed by Qaddafi’s campaign against thousands of Libyans, continuing protests and mass killings elsewhere in the Arab world… oh, and the Japanese earthquake-tsunami-nuclear trifecta (!!). Downplaying the deliberate butchering of a Jewish family is unseemly, and so is overstating its significance relative to other immediate crises near and far.

Had the Itamar murders taken place a few months earlier, they would have received far more press, and Netanyahu’s decision to build more West Bank housing would have attracted far more condemnation. When Israel launched Operation Cast Lead two years ago in Gaza, President Bush was preparing to conclude his White House tenure and Americans and the rest of the world were out on Christmas break. That timing definitely worked to Israel’s advantage, reducing the unavoidable negative publicity. It cuts both ways.

Libya can save U.S. in Mideast

Rather than compounding the military campaigns to which President Bush originally committed us a decade ago, the intervention in Libya can become part of a broader transformation that ultimately stabilizes the region, restoring and even breaking new ground in the credibility and legitimacy of U.S. influence and power in the Middle East.

Libya seems to be a perfect fit for U.S. intervention. Despite the Bush administration's rapprochement with Libya, unlike Mubarak in Egypt, Muammar Qaddafi is hardly seen as Washington's ally, so there's little of that imperialist baggage or angst. The United States is acting under a genuine coalition, including participation of Arab forces. The Arab League, and China and Russia, have stepped back from their original assent to the Libya intervention, but they were fully aware that the UN Security Council resolution was authorizing more than a simple "no fly zone".

The United States was too involved in Mubarak's fortunes to intervene in Egypt, and Bahrain is home to our Fifth Fleet and it's Arabia's new Achilles' Heel. Qaddafi has established himself as the quintessential isolated fanatic dictator, and not without merit. Also, enabling the rebel tribes to remove him may open opportunities for further mayhem, but in reality Al Qaeda has failed to manifest itself in any of the Mideast turmoil, including in Libya where Qaddafi and other critics of international intervention have revived Osam bin Laden as the poster child for status quo tyranny.

About those Iraq comparisons...

Who can forget that famous line from Newt Gingrich, who told Fox News that “the more difficult it gets, the more the President golfs and the more the President hides.” Relax, Gingrich wasn't dissing former President George W. Bush -- notorious for playing golf and vacationing -- he was actually criticizing President Barack Obama, just two days ago.

It was genuinely entertaining to watch members of the Republican foreign policy elite warn of Libyan mission creep last Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press". Of course, NBC identified Richard Haass as President of the Council on Foreign Relations rather than as a former policy advisor for both Presidents Bush. To their credit, both Haass and the elder Bush understood the limitations of U.S. unilateral force. As for the younger President Bush, well…

The coordinated international military effort in Libya bears no resemblance to the junior Bush adventure in Iraq, especially since it was authorized under an expansive resolution by the United Nations Security Council. What's more, France -- which Bush 43 left behind -- is not only on board, it took the diplomatic lead. And even the Arab League found a rare moment of courage, just long enough to sign off on the Security Council resolution. (For all those complaining that Obama isn't taking the lead on Libya, see under: Bush 43.) 


There may be good reasons to not act or to do even more in Libya, or to do it differently, but this is not comparable to Iraq, for the reasons above and for so many more reasons that should be as obvious as they are tedious to list. Also, George W. Bush was the President of the United States who reopened diplomatic and trade relations with Muammar Qaddafi's Libya, with some fanfare. Yup, that would be another difference.