Watched a bit of the Bill Moyer's NOW last night. He interviewed Joseph Wilson, the last US Diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein (where he was asked what it would take for the U.S. to ignore Iraq's invasion of Kuwait). Wilson made the excellent point that the U.S. is dangling the wrong carrot for its goal of Peace, Stability, Freedom, and Democracy (in some form) in the middle east. The carrot we're using right now is "conform to our wishes or we will bomb you back to stone age" when it should be "we've just removed your number one complaint, so it's time to conform to our wishes." What's the number one complaint? Well it's the red herring of a Palestine Homeland, of course. Wilson correctly states that until that issue is resolved every arab state, terrorist group, religious iman, can always point at that situation and say the U.S. really doesn't have peace as it's number one concern.
Of course, this little bit of info from the Daily Kos is a real gem too. Like the U.S. has done on so many occaisions, looks like Isreal has made their bed and prefer to bulldoze the house rather than sleep in it.
