the rix mix

"I wouldn't be standing here if I didn't believe that peace was possible," the president said.

The Bush administration pronounced itself pleased with the outcome of the conference.

The world had to wait nearly seven years for this? It seems to have had the effect of demonstrating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's isolation from the Sunni-Arab world. But we already knew that. Perhaps the conference wasn't about "peace" at all, but something else, something regarding Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is hardly a strong leader compared to his predecessors. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is not the representative voice of the Palestinian people. We already know how the Israelis will react when the Palestinians raise the subject of East Jerusalem. Lebanon is falling apart - again, Syria's not getting the Golan Heights back. Success is always unlikely, but an American president should never put the goal of justice on the backburner the way the Monkey Brain adminstration has, should never wait until the last year of a lame duck term to begin the "process." Peace without justice is no peace, & the Cheney/Bush junta has never been about justice, or peace.