The Gaza conflict is but another chapter of Bush's legacy

If ever there were a propitious time to have those five escapist letters -- e-l-e-c-t -- attached postpositively to his new title, this is it.

The president-elect is "closely monitoring the situation in Gaza," his national security spokeswoman again insisted over the weekend. There is, however, only "one president at a time, and we intend to respect that" -- as well as cling to it.

Yet Barack Obama's luxury of respectful distance expires in 15 days. Then he'll be forced to confront a welter of planetary disintegration, of which "the situation in Gaza" is but one -- the inevitable result of eight sustained years of Bushian fecklessness and neglect.

In perhaps one of the most disingenuous statements ever released by this White House -- and that's saying a lot -- the Bush administration claimed to be "working toward a new cease-fire," the old one of which began withering in November and was dead by December. Yet in laboring for a cease-fire the administration asked that no firing be ceased; it merely asked Israel to "be mindful of the potential consequences to civilians."

In a further insult to virtually everyone's intelligence, Mr. Bush said Saturday afternoon that his team of unrivaled jingoists was "leading diplomatic efforts to achieve a meaningful cease-fire that is fully respected" -- efforts that began in earnest on Saturday night by thwarting the U.N. Security Council's call for a cease-fire.

Good grief, are there really still 15 days left? That's, like, more than two weeks, right? Couldn't we just call all that inaugural fuss a quaint formality and get on with some adult supervision?

With our hellish fortnight nevertheless remaining, whether anyone likes it or not, and very, very few do, the NY Times' Frank Rich reminded us yesterday as to the origins of some of Gaza's present misery:

"Three years ago after the Palestinian elections, [Bush] championed … his 'freedom agenda' [which] led to a landslide victory for Hamas."

"'There is something healthy about a system that does that,' Bush observed at the time, as he congratulated Palestinian voters for rejecting 'the old guard.'"

The only thing that muffled the audible gasps of incredulity at the time was an already well-pronounced weariness of the Bush administration's knack for getting pretty much everything wrong.

Still, outside of President Bush and his enduring fecklessness, it is tricky at best, and nigh impossible at worst, to assign unilateral blame for the present crisis in Gaza. For this is one of those irrepressible conflicts in which both sides are profoundly wrong, while each is profoundly in the right.

Looking at it from a parental point of view, which often can put a comprehensible human face on unspeakably inhuman events, Obama in the past has defended Israel's efforts to, quite simply, protect itself. If he had children sleeping under a grim blanket of incoming rocket fire, he said, the decision to remove both the threat and reality would be an easy one.

What could be simpler. Or, more complicated. Because Palestinian parents are justifiably thinking the very same thing.

It now appears, Bushlike, that Israel's principal war aim is regime change. Last week its foreign minister said "There is no doubt that as long as Hamas controls Gaza, it is a problem for Israel, a problem for the Palestinians and a problem for the entire region"; and even more forebodingly, Israel's vice premier said Friday that "What I think we need to do is to reach a situation in which we do not allow Hamas to govern."

Yet "while it may sound decisive," as the NY Times put it in Obama- or Bush-Speak, to talk of "taking Hamas out of power, almost no one familiar with Gaza and Palestinian politics considers it realistic. Hamas legislators won a democratic majority in elections four years ago, and the group has 15,000 to 20,000 men under arms."

All of which guarantees a durable irresolution, permanent violence and perhaps an endless Israeli occupation. Unless, that is, real adults soon engage in real regional diplomacy, which has been as dead as Bush's brain for eight long years.

Welcome, Mr. Obama, to some major-league cleanup tasks.