In 2007, the Bush administration succumbed to the inevitable temptation of trying to manufacture a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, despite the fact that the chances that talks will lead to anything productive or peaceful are nil.
Bush spent his first years trying to break the “realist” strategy predicated on repeated and fruitless attempts to force Israel into concessions for the sake of a peace that the Palestinians had no interest in. Foolishly searching for a foreign-policy triumph that will gain them credit in the Arab world, Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are now having a go at repeating the folly of the Clinton team.
Though their government is always ready to talk, Israelis paid the consequences of similar efforts in the past in blood. Yet this is but one example of how presidents can alter events or become the captives of foreign-policy conceptions that they feel helpless to change.
All of which should lead us to think that among the most important credentials the next president should have is the strength of character to resist foolish diplomatic endeavors, even if the entire foreign-policy establishment is telling him that this is what he – or she – must do.
Most of all, serious voters must think hard about a would-be president’s ability to see the big picture, in which America remains locked in a long-term war with Islamists. They should carefully gauge which of the candidates is merely mouthing pro-forma platitudes about backing the Jewish state, and which are likely to carry out policies that will strengthen Israel and weaken those who wish to destroy it and our own nation.
The person who takes the presidential oath in January 2009 will, like it or not, be a wartime president. None of us can know for certain which of the candidates will be the best foreign-policy chief. But anyone who votes for any one of them on any basis but that is sleepwalking into a minefield.