Submitted by Claude Bogardus, Aug 15, 2007 08:04

Mr. Giuliani has truth and advantage on his side. Since the Wretched Nixon bypassed the State Department and made Mr. Kissinger his roving Secretaty of State (in fact and eventually in title), the "Peace Ptrocess" has been the province of the State Department, keeping the clerks occupied and out of mischief (usually). America's involvement in the Middle East, other than as a passive customer for the only essential export, derives from two events. When President Roosevelt returned from the Tehran Summit, with Stalin and Churchill,on a Cruiser in the Red Sea, he met with the Despot of Arabia, ibn Saud, and promised him "support" in return for Oil Cencessions for American Companies. When the Jews, after almost two millennia in diaspora, reclaimed a portion of their Divine Deed and declared, in 1948, the sovereign state of Israel to be in existence, President Truman vied with Stalin to be the very first to recognize the new state. Since then the United States Government has found itself on both sides of a senseless quarrel that can never be resolved. The beliefs and aspirations of the two sides render a reconciliation impossible. To tie America's foreign policies in the Region to such a peaceful projected outcome is delusional, but just the task to occupy a State Department that has focused on the manipulation of conceptual models for four decades, while reality intrudes itself from time to time as a most unwelcome participant. The key question, to be avoided by State if possible is: What are the sources of legitimacy for an Arab Government? Is it to be Allah with the accompanying tyranny and impoverishment? Is it to be Socialism with the accompanying tyranny and impoverishment? Is it to be the Democratic Social Contract with the accompanying social dislocations, wrenching alterations in citizens' beliefs and attitudes with the accompanying wide range of wealth distribution among the citizens? The first two have been tried and failed. President Bush offers the third political option to a sick society not yet recovered from the despotism of the Turk. What if it is rejected or fails? No matter. The State Department will continue to caress their beloved Conceptual Models.

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