US and the World

On Solving Problems

Problems that can't be solved

James Carroll has a remarkably lucid explanation for why Bush and company will not succeed in their war on terror and why Iraq has become our Left Bank.

IT IS A FOOL who defines a problem in such a way that it cannot be solved. That was a watchword of Cold War arms limitation negotiators, but it seems a forgotten lesson now.

When President Bush defines the problem of terrorism by decreeing simplistically, "If you're not with us, you're against us," he makes solution of this complex problem impossible. By driving allies away, demonizing the nonaligned, and forcing an either-or choice on people who reject it, he is playing into the hands of the terrorists.
. . .

If the problem between Israelis and Palestinians is defined by each side as the mere existence of the other, there is no solution. Similarly, if America defines its enemy as anyone who is not, as President Bush put it, "with us," we are embarked on a lonely road to nowhere. (Curiously, the president here negatively reverses the position of his favorite political philosopher, Jesus of Nazareth, who said, positively, "Anyone who is not against us is for us," according to Mark 9:40.) Now that with Iraq Bush has a West Bank of his own, Jerusalem and Washington find themselves on the same dead end street, mapless. [Emphasis added]