Congress, the Voters & a Peace Plan (BRENT BUDOWSKY)

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Congress, the Voters & a Peace Plan

By Brent Budowsky

In December of 2006 the United States stands on the brink of a historic miscalculation that could translate a catastrophe in Iraq into a region-wide conflagration, even more deadly than the status quo.

As President Bush prepares to announce the policies that will define the final two years of his presidency, what I propose privately and now publicly is this:

First, that the President initiate -- and Congress require as a condition for support -- a credible and legitimate attempt to broker a broader and comprehensive Middle East peace.

Specifically I suggest that the President state -- and Congressional leaders urge him to state -- that he is sending former Presidents George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton on a Middle East peace listening tour. They would meet with Israelis and governments throughout the region, to determine how they define their security needs, consider creative policies to bridge differences, and report back to the President and Congress their findings and suggestions about the possibilities to escalate the search for peace.

We should be escalating the search for peace, not stirring the winds of war. A grateful Nation, a generation of young people, and our allies everywhere would applaud the honorable beginning of an American President naming two former Presidents to initiate this effort and explore the opportunities.

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To Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Edwards, Tom Vilsak, Bill Richardson, Wesley Clark, Chris Dodd, Al Gore and any potential candidates for the Presidency, now is the time to draw a line in the sand, in clear and decisive terms.

For six full years the United States of America has abandoned the role that every previous President, from both parties, conservative to liberal, has advanced since 1948. It is not enough to draw shades of distinction from a policy rooted in disaster. It is not enough to engage a debate between those who favor a major escalation, those who favor a minor escalation, and those maneuvering around which terms will make acceptable whatever escalation they might reluctantly support.

Again: we must end this dialectic of death, this choice between competing versions of failure.

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http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2006/122306a.html