Reagan Was Smarter
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
For an illustration of why it’s sometimes better for America to go it alone on Middle East policy than try to play along with France and Russia, feature the statement issued yesterday from St. Petersburg from the Group of Eight industrialized nations. It called for “An end to Israeli military operations and the early withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza,” and it called on Israel to release “the arrested Palestinian ministers and parliamentarians.” The statement said “Israel needs to refrain from unilateral acts that could prejudice a final settlement and agree to negotiate in good faith.” It called for “Israeli compliance with the Agreement on Movement and Access of November 2005 and action on other steps to ease the humanitarian plight of the people of Gaza and the West Bank.” It said “We call upon Israel to exercise utmost restraint, seeking to avoid casualties among innocent civilians and damage to civilian infrastructure and to refrain from acts that would destabilize the Lebanese government.”
Along with these demands on Israel – which has suffered hundreds of unprovoked rocket attacks on its cities and is being asked to negotiate “in good faith”* with an adversary that believes it is receiving orders from God to exterminate the Jews – one would think the whizzes of the G-8 would include a list of demands on Syria and Iran. In the event, the G-8 statement included not a single mention of Iran or Syria beyond praising Syria from withdrawing from Lebanon in 2005. This despite the fact that everyone knows that the head of Hamas is based in Damascus and that Hezbollah is funded and armed by Iran and Syria. President Putin claimed that the G-8 leaders “don’t have sufficient evidence” of Syrian or Iranian involvement. Guess the KGB’s capabilities have deteriorated since the days in which Vladimir Vladimirovich served as a lieutenant colonel. Statements like this make the case for keeping Russia and the Europeans out of Middle East mediation. President Bush has made his own views of the situation clear, publicly blaming Iran and Syria, but it’s hard to understand why he signed onto this multilateral mush. Better to have packed up and headed home, like Reagan at Reykjavik.
* What exactly is one supposed to negotiate with them? Prime Minister Barak, the former leader of Israel, asked on Fox News.
