Hmmmm

John Murney links to this article by the Globe and Mail. There are also several articles appearing on Google News about it. This is really big. But will it succeed? We can be sure there will be plenty of opposition to it both in Israel and in Iran, not to mention other Islamic states.

Hat's off to Muslim Turkey, though, for acting as broker. Turkey has it's own internal problems with Islamists wishing to impose their despotic will and has a vested interest in shifting that dynamic toward a more stable democratic future, preserving its democracy. Olmert is searching for a major political coup to save his faltering prime minstership, but Israelis will naturally be very skeptical. His minority government could be booted out before an agreement is reached.

If it does succeed, let's hope it will be more durable than the Oslo Accords. The announcement in today's headlines has come as a big surprise, the same way the negotiation leading to Oslo Accords became public. A lot has changed in the Middle Eastern geopolitical landscape since then. (Thank you George Bush!) For decades, peace between Israel and the Arab world has been frustratingly elusive. Maybe its time has now come. As I said in so many words on John Murney's blog the other day, one the unspoken motives for toppling the Ba'athist regime in Iraq was to put Israel in a position where it would owe the US big time and make more serious efforts to reach a peace agreement with more of its neighbours. Perhaps Olmert is paying his dues. Can a Palestinian state be far behind? Does Hezbollah's fate hang in the balance? Could the Cedar revolution finally triumph? Who will be Iran's next proxy state? Hugo,there's a call for you. It's Tehran.