Thomas Friedman lays out a coherent alternative to the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, including the obvious but apparently unthinkable step of imposing the Clinton peace plan on Israel and Palestine. It’s clear now that, even if there is a successful war in Iraq, there is no Bush strategy going beyond that. Fantasies of using Iraq as a basecamp and oil reserve for the liberation of Saudi Arabia are just that.

(Those who don’t follow the minutiae of American politics may be puzzled by the reference to a ‘Sister Souljah speech’. I barely recalled that Sister Souljah was a radical black rapper who Clinton attacked. He won lots of support, but risked alienating Jesse Jackson. Apparently this is now code for the idea that Bush should break with the Republican far-right.)