Brent Scowcroft has a suggestion about our diplomatic strategy. It seems he thinks that an exit from Iraq would be easier to arrange if we could get Iraq's Arab neighbors on our side in some other way --- like, for instance, arranging an amicable solution to that whole, awkward Palestinian problem. That shouldn't be particularly difficult, now, should it?

You know, I remember a Tom Friedman column which suggested that the key to solving the Palestinian issue was improving things in Iraq --- which would then make Arabs elsewhere happier with the Israelis by some magical pony-transfer process whose details were... not fully specified. The connection doesn't work any better the other way.