Bush finds a “road map,” but still looks lost

For nearly nine months, the White House has had the luxury of ignoring the Israeli/Palestinian crisis. Truth be told, the president has intentionally ignored events that pushed both sides further from peace since the day he took office. But it was nearly nine months ago when Bush announced that he would “support” Palestinian efforts just as soon as they developed internal, democratic governing structures, and elected new leaders who are not “compromised by terror.”

With those remarks, Bush put Israel on the international backburner. As of this morning, Israel is back.

In a Rose Garden event today, Bush announced that he is prepared to unveil a “road map” that would lay out specific steps towards independence for Palestinians and peace for Israel. Palestinians prompted Bush’s hand by announcing the election of a new Prime Minister, chosen by its legislature, to share power with long-time leader Yassir Arafat.

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo noted that the new leader will be Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian architect of the 1993 Oslo peace accords, whom Marshall describes as “unquestionably one of the good guys.”

It’s about time Bush got back in the game. To think the president had a plan to resolve this conflict but kept it in his desk drawer until the Palestinians jumped through some hoops is rather troubling. Nevertheless, I hope the White House’s “road map” is a good one and it helps put both sides back on the road to peace.

More importantly, while I think today’s announcement is good news, I find the chain of events somewhat odd. Less than a week ago, the White House spurned the advice of its allies and said it would not release an Israeli/Palestinian “road map” until after we were done with a war in Iraq.

In fact, take a look at the New York Times report on these developments from earlier this week. It explains that negotiations over the map’s details, in which the administration was deeply involved, have been underway for about a year. As recently as December 2002, Bush met with U.N. officials, including Secretary General Kofi Annan, and gave assurances that “the plan would be published as soon as the Israeli elections were completed in late January.”

January came and went, and Bush remained silent. Just a few days ago, White House officials told the world that we’ve got a peace plan, but everyone will have to wait to see it until we’re done invading Iraq. This morning, Bush inexplicably reverses course yet again and announces he’s ready to help now.

Does this White House have a clue what it’s doing? Sadly, no.