Changing Course in the Middle East?

Blair, who far from a blind supporter of Bush's lead, has started a new initiative that may well have some progress. He correctly views the entire Middle East as geographically overlapping interacting theaters of conflict. Going for a comprehensive peace plan is the way to go. Otherwise, each feeds the turmoil and armaments in the other. I've heard rumor that Jimmy Carter has a book coming out on the same topic. Perhaps we can have a joint process unlike anything the Bush Administration has attempted.
But so far, Bush shows little inclination to do anything but stonewall. The Petty song "Won't back down..." rings in my head. The macho meatheads solution to any problem is stand your ground. It doesn't require any thinking or humility.
washingtonpost.com

President Bush came under new pressure yesterday at home and abroad to alter his policies in the Middle East. British Prime Minister Tony Blair pushed for a broader Arab-Israeli peace initiative to help stabilize Iraq, while the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee pledged to take a hard line on seeking early troop withdrawals.


Bush offered little indication that he is planning to adjust his approach, telling reporters gathered in the Oval Office that "the best military options depend upon the conditions on the ground" in Iraq. The president also met for more than an hour with former secretary of state James A. Baker III, former representative Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) and other members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which is looking to chart a new course in the war.


The day's events underscored the rapidly evolving political landscape for the White House, which finds itself trying to balance the desire for change voiced by the electorate last Tuesday with the president's frequently stated conviction that the United States must remain engaged militarily in Iraq until the government there can maintain its own security.


The White House will also have to deal with a Congress controlled by Democrats, a difference highlighted by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) as he outlined the new agenda of the Armed Services Committee, which for the past four years has been largely deferential to Bush's conduct of the war. Levin said he plans to step up the committee's activities, reviewing the state of military readiness and conducting more oversight of such issues as the rendition of terrorism suspects to countries suspected of practicing torture.


Levin also served notice that he intends to take a strong line on withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, telling reporters that he thinks a slim majority of the Senate may back his call for a "phased redeployment" of more than 140,000 U.S. troops.


"We had 40 senators who voted that way essentially six months ago, roughly, and there may be 50 or 51 senators that will vote that way now," Levin said at a news conference, referring to a bill that would call on the president to inform the Iraqi government that U.S. forces would begin leaving Iraq in four to six months.


In London, meanwhile, Blair suggested a desire for a more aggressive Western initiative to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a key to tamping down violence in the region, a recommendation that is also reportedly under consideration by the Iraq Study Group. Blair said that resolving the Arab-Israeli dispute, stabilizing Lebanon and pressuring Iran to halt its support of militants are key to helping reduce bloodshed in Iraq.


"A major part of the answer to Iraq lies not in Iraq itself but outside it, in the whole of the region where the same forces are at work, where the roots of this global terrorism are to be found, where the extremism flourishes," said Blair, Bush's closest international ally on Iraq.