Annapolis Syndrome

There is an unmistakable tinge of insanity creeping into the U.S. effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It takes form in the embarrassing desperation of Condoleeza Rice, as she countenances the increasing implausibility of the Annapolis conference with ever more florid and urgent declarations of the imperative of creating a Palestinian state. It takes form in the haphazard manner in which the U.S. has jettisoned virtually every requirement arrived upon in previous negotiations, most notably the unannounced dismissal of the 2003 Roadmap. And this creeping insanity takes form most strikingly in the refusal of U.S. strategists to deal seriously with the array of facts on the ground, facts that would undermine any print-on-paper agreements arising from Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

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What Rice has in fact gone a long way toward accomplishing is a demonstration of the fact that none of the U.S.'s previous diplomatic commitments will be considered of the slightest relevance when it comes to the latest round of peacemaking. Most farcical of all is that the current round of "engagement," intended in part to restore American credibility in the Middle East by showing the world that the U.S. is willing to heavily invest itself in the conflict, is swiftly establishing the opposite—the same thing that was established in all the previous peacemaking efforts. But at least the Bush administration can come away from all of this knowing that this particular failure was not a unique one.