Sharon is Now a Danger to US Troops and Hopes in Iraq

Complicated and tenuous as America's hold on Iraq is, the more urgent crisis is in Israel and Palestine, this opinion piece in The Guardian contends. The cease-fire America has worked so hard to produce and which had created a period of tentative peace between Palestinian factions and the Israeli government, is now in danger of collapse. And, although a settlement in the Holy Land will not eradicate terrorism, the author argues that a stalled or abandoned peace process will "undoubtedly feed the growth of terrorism, and that now includes a threat to America, and anybody associated with America, in Iraq." The United States must therefore pin responsibility for the renewed attacks where it belongs – on the Sharon government. The Sharon government, the author contends, had hoped the road map would serve as an instrument for the disarmament and political extinction of all radical groups and parties among the Palestinians. When this failed to occur, it set about provoking Hamas by assassinating Palestinian leaders. The result has been renewed violence and possibly an unfixable breakdown on the road to peace throughout the region, and particularly in Iraq. "Sharon, in other words, endangers American troops and American purposes, in the largest and boldest of its undertakings abroad," the author concludes. – YaleGlobal