CHENEY LOGIC

In the last couple of days, two things have been revealed in the Middle East. The first is that the Iranian-Palestinian link is now incontrovertible. Iran is using the Intifada to wage an unofficial and undeclared war on Israel. I wrote about such a connection immediately after the recovery of the Iran-sponsored boat ferrying serious weapons to Palestinian terrorists was seized by the Israelis a couple of months ago. When such reports appear on the front page of the New York Times, as they did Sunday, you know there’s not much doubt of their veracity. The second fact is that, despite a major climb-down by the United States, Palestinian terrorist violence continues unabated while negotiations continue. If Arafat is allowed to travel to the Arab summit, he will have proved that his Arab terrorist alliances will not be used against him, that terrorist violence, far from making his life more difficult, works in getting the attention of the United States, and that the U.S. is so rattled by Arab opinion, that the Palestinians now have a near-veto over the timing of our confrontation with Iraq. Game, set and match to Arafat. And president William Jefferson Bush keeps helping him.