Because I’m provocative, I want to do the next Daisy ad. You remember the nuclear ad that Johnson’s people came up with in ’64 to show that Goldwater was unstable? My ad has the little girl calmly pulling off the little daisy leaves and the voiceover says:
It killed Bobby Kennedy… it blew up the World Trade Center… it got us into the Iraq War… It killed 13 people at Fort Hood… It just blew up a CIA station, killing 7 agents… It’s our special relationship with Israel. When will you say enough?
David Ignatius has a good column in the Washington Post talking about the elephant in the room.
But in truth, the strategy that Obama proposed in Cairo is more important now than ever. Critics speak as if peacemaking and battling Muslim extremism should be seen as an either/or proposition. What Obama understood a year ago is that the two are linked. The best way to undercut extremists in Iran or al-Qaeda is to make progress on issues that matter to the Muslim world. Guns alone won’t do it; if it were otherwise, the Israelis would have battled their way to peace long ago. [This passes for a revelation, truly, in Washington; still we pump them with guns]
You can’t turn this anger around just by drinking tea or showering development money. The United States must address issues that people care passionately about, such as the Palestinian problem.
The administration is struggling to revive the stillborn Palestinian peace process. George Mitchell, the president’s special envoy to the Middle East, is said to be drafting terms of reference for negotiations and letters of assurance for the parties that will offer more clarity about U.S. positions on key issues. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested the outlines last week when she called for "an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines with agreed swaps" of territory. [is it viable, Ignatius? Go look and see. I’m not sure it is…]
Even as he fights al-Qaeda and its allies, Obama needs to be Obama. He needs to continue voicing the Cairo message of outreach to the Muslim world — not as an alternative to battling extremism but as a necessary component of that fight. We are confronting an enemy that wants to draw us deeper into battle, so that America is more isolated and unpopular. We avoid that spider’s trap by solving problems that matter.
