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Middle East : Dazed and confused - by Joan Walsh
The three-way is off! The trilateral is now a bilateral! And the vain hope that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki could solve the Iraq crisis is spinning away just as fast as the slimmer hope that a summit in Jordan could make President Bush look like a leader.
In a week of surreal attempts at what administration officials apparently think is "diplomacy," Wednesday's press briefing with deputy press secretary Dan Bartlett is still a standout. The facts are clear: On the heels of an all but official leak of a memo by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, criticizing al-Maliki as either ignorant, dishonest or incompetent, suddenly plans for a Wednesday night meeting between President Bush, Jordan's King Abdullah and the Iraqi prime minister are off.
While some Democrats are already protesting the Baker group's probable failure to call for a timeline for troop withdrawal, Vice President Dick Cheney is said to be dead set against its almost certain recommendation that the administration reach out to Iran and Syria. And so the administration is suddenly looking globally for its own answers. The problem? "There's complete bewilderment as to what to do," the advisor told Time.
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