According to Steve Chapman, that’s the lesson that neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis have learned. He writes:

Many Israelis, notably Ariel Sharon, have long fantasized that they could suppress the danger posed by Palestinian terrorism while holding on to everything that matters to them — an undivided Jerusalem, Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, ultimate control over the amount of autonomy allowed the Palestinians, and so on.

A lot of Palestinians, including Yasser Arafat, have never abandoned the hope of eventually claiming all the land of Palestine and ridding themselves of the hated Jewish state — and they expect the Israelis to compromise with them anyway.

I think it’s a good point. It’s kind of a prisoner’s dilemma. Each side thinks they can have it all, but they’d both be better off if they compromised and settled for less than what they ultimately want.

But when are two dueling parties most likely to come to the table? When one of two things happens: (1) Both sides come to the realization that they’ll never win the war completely, or (2) one side does win the war convincingly and the other side has no choice but to surrender to "compromise."

And — let’s face it — this is not a war in which either side will ever yield to unconditional surrender. In the meantime, there’s nothing Colin Powell or any U.S. diplomat can do to change that.

To the contrary, as Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has pointed out, U.S. involvement does little to improve the chances for Mideast peace, but does a whole lot to make enemies for ourselves among terrorists — and the nations which support them — in the region.

And I think Alan Bock was on track when he argued thusly:

It makes at least as much sense and probably more to suggest that the continuing conviction that the United States will eventually play an increasingly intense and involved role … is as much a deterrent to peace as a goad toward settlement.

If both sides believe that the United States … will eventually have to step in, then neither side has much of an incentive to take the idea of negotiating very seriously.

Read the rest of Bock’s column at Antiwar.com. He makes several good points.

Remember those obnoxious Super Bowl ads which claimed that drug users were giving money to terrorists? The Libertarian Party has struck back as part of its "drug war strategy."

Print ads placed in the USA Today and the Washington Times on Feb. 26 showed a large photo of drug czar John Walters. Small text running over the center of his face read: "This week, I had lunch with the President, testified before Congress, and helped funnel $40 million in illegal drug money to groups like the Taliban."

The so-called drug war strategy is controversial within the LP. Many Americans already associate the LP primarily with its pro-legalization stance on drugs, often negatively or outside the context of the LP’s comprehensive platform, which favors maximizing both individual liberty and personal responsibility.

So, should the LP risk being pigeonholed as the pro-drug party — to the extent that it isn’t already — in order to exploit one of the few true wedge issues it has? Polls have shown increasing support for alternatives to the drug war, which the LP has opposed since its founding. And the medical marijuana movement is so popular that network sitcoms like "The Simpsons" are satirizing it.

I think that the strategy is both worth the risk as well as morally commendable. At this point, what does the LP have to lose? A few hundred locally elected officials? That’s not much of a risk. The odds against electoral success are very long. Even Ralph Nader is struggling to hold together his formerly burgeoning coalition.

Now is the time for the LP to be bold and, frankly, not concern itself so much with winning elections for the time being. If the LP survives only as a kind of pressure group that engages in media campaigns to support libertarian causes, that would be OK with me. Sure, it would mean I’d have to stop voting, but at least it would be doing some good instead of just being an ineffective, second-rate "third party."

In the meantime, get the facts on how the drug war finances terrorist activity.
10:49 PM]

The death tax will not die! States are now moving in to ensure that people meet the taxman before they meet their maker, reports Fox News‘ Kelley Beaucar Vlahos.