Today's Washington Post carries an op-ed by Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski. They've written the same article maybe a hundred times? What is it about? Well, it's their usual wrap about bringing everything back to square one in Palestine with Israel surrendering its right of self-defense to NATO. At least, the duo realizes that there would be a continuing problem of defending Israel even after Palestine is established. But this is not peace. Is it? How would this come about? Yes, a special envoy, of course. Why didn't I think of this? Who might that be? The Duke of Edinburgh? Bono? Maybe Bishop Tutu. Maybe the mad Irish lady who won the Nobel Peace Prize and now wants Israel thrown out of the United Nations.
The special envoy is now called in Brent and Zbig's heavy analysis "a high-level dignitary." Of course! Very high-level. They might choose Kofi Annan with all his experience from Rwanda and Bosnia protecting the killers. The piece stands on one assumption: "In perhaps no other region was the election (of Barack Obama) more favorably received than in the Middle East." Alas, this is a lie. There was no celebrating anything anywhere around the Arab world. In fact, there was tremendous and cynical distance from his victory. And the Palestinians? Read my SPINE from two weeks ago. On the other hand, there was great celebration in Israel where the people take every good omen seriously. They even took the Oslo process seriously. They were dumb, dumb, dumb. One thing of which you can be sure. The high-level dignitary will not be Bill Clinton, making millions off the wealthy oil Arabs and squeezing Israel to give up to the Palestinians just one more street in Jerusalem.