A Day Late and an ICBM short

After 7 years of inaction and counterproductive actions, George Bush decided to try for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal at Annapolis, well... more accurately to try to start negotiations that may one day lead to a peace deal. 'Peace in the Holy Land is possible,' he says, I think sounding more like a crazy fundie than a president. Two weeks later Israel is still busy invading Gaza. But, he has been negotiating with North Korea about their nuclear program, even sending them a letter. He has been talking more about Iran's nuclear plans than about Iraq. After past grand statements like i will leave it to the history books to judge me on iraq, it looks like he is trying to hedge his bets and give diplomacy a chance as a fallback in case the whole spreading democracy through the mideast through Iraq doesn't work out as was planned. Going from you're either with us or against us, and you have 24 hours to surrender or we invade, to a slightly more tactful style has won him some half admirers. There was even a TIME magazine article called 'Geoge W. Bush: Diplomat'

Never one to change his mind on his principled stands, this apparent reversal could actually get some important things accomplished, had it come 6 years ago. If the goal is to be remembered as an anti nuclear proliferation crusader, it certainly didn't help to have declared your intention to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. It would also be smart also to actually follow the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the treaty that he has criticized other countries for not following. Maybe selling all that nuclear technology to India might not have been the best idea either, seeing as they didn't sign that treaty, as Israel and Pakistan also have not, and the NPT specifically prohibits doing that. Or perhaps it wasn't wise to try and upgrade our nuclear arsenal, replace old warheads, and try to develop new 'bunker buster' nukes. Maybe we shouldn't have resurrected REagan's star wars missile defense program. Maybe it isn't helpful to threaten or invade other countries and scare them in to wanting the bomb

Maybe if he had taken this approach earlier, Russia would not be considering re-starting the cold war. Bush's focus lately has been on Iran's nuclear research and "preventing WWIII'. Unfortunately a last-minute attempt to repair the nuclear problems of the world won't make up for years and years of doing nothing or making it worse.