] Jerusalem used to be the direction in which the prophet ] Muhammad and the first Muslims turned to pray. In time, ] Muhammad changed the direction, or qibla, and Muslims ] began to pray facing Mecca, as they do today. All the ] Bush White House did was change the qibla of American ] Middle East policy from Jerusalem to Baghdad. While the ] present clique of White House ideologues assumed that a ] safe, stable, and democratic Iraq would reshape the ] region, Zinni, Brzezinski, and company still maintain ] that the peace process is the key. They don't know more ] about the Middle East than the Bush White House; they're ] just angry that someone replaced their absurd reductive ] paradigm with another, equally absurd reductive paradigm. Good article. Palestine Policy Paralysis - Face it: There is no -key- to Middle East peace. |