The Dilemma: Why Bush had to act

摘要

The war on terror had been going so well for George W. Bush that he threw a little party last week, inviting 179 of America's closest allies to the White House for a sun-soaked pageant of remembrance and resolve. On the six-month anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush thanked the "mighty coalition of civilized nations" for joining the war's first phase in Afghanistan and rallied them for the next one. "We're winning," he said. Self-congratulation has rarely had a shorter half-life. Within hours, Bush's plans to go global with the war on terror were crowded out by new images of violence from the Middle East, where the endless fight between Israelis and Palestinians plunged once more into the abyss of total war. Televisions in the White House and around the world showed 40 tanks and 100 armored personnel carriers rumbling into the West Bank town of Ramallah; Israeli troops blindfolding Palestinian teenagers and machine-gunning Arab homes; an Arab mob executing a suspected Israeli collaborator, then hanging his body by the feet; mothers wailing over their dead children. By the time the chairs had been cleared and the 179 flags removed from the South Lawn, at least 27 were dead from Israeli raids into Palestinian-held territory. The Middle East had crashed Bush's party.