Friday, November 23, 2007

Deja-vu in the Middle East

Like Clinton before him, Bush is racing to resolve one of the world's most dangerous conflicts before his presidency ends

By Joschka Fischer
The Guardian

"Does history repeat itself, after all? Recent developments in the Middle East suggest that the answer is "yes," because the situation at the end of President George Bush's tenure increasingly resembles that of Bill Clinton's final year in the presidency. Both presidents, at the end of their respective terms, sought to resolve one of the world's most dangerous conflicts, while facing the threat that time was running out on them......

So, from a realistic point of view, a positive outcome for the Annapolis talks seems almost impossible. Why should this conflict, which has proven to be unsolvable in the past, be suddenly solved (or brought closer to a solution) by three actors - Bush, Olmert, and Abbas - who are all in a state of profound domestic weakness?

Karl Marx wrote that history always repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. One might fear that Camp David proves to be the tragedy and Annapolis the farce......"

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