Ya gotta love him. Where else would someone be so ridiculous in public? And they breed, proof positive that evolution isn't always a steady progression toward the smarter, wiser, but can take leaps backward even without comets or asteroids. (GHWB was a bit brighter than The Little Monkey, and those little ones swinging through the trees ain't showing much yet.)

Bush regards UN resolutions as sacred!

"Enough is enough," said Bush, who argued that Saddam has defied the United Nations 16 times since the Gulf War. "The United Nations will either be able to function as a peacekeeping body as we head into the 21st century, or it will be irrelevant, and that's what we are about to find out."

(If you want "multi-lateralism", do what I do. If you want unilateralism, then don't do what I do. And that makes sense to conservatives, that seems to them to be a big concession. Heh, heh.)

But what about these UN Security Council Resolutions? Y’see, these don’t have to be respected. The UN won’t be irrelevant if, say, Resolution 242 is ignored for 35 (count ‘em, thirty-five) years.

Security Council Resolution 242 - 1967
Generally accepted by the international community as the primary legal basis for a negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian question, this resolution calls on Israel to relinquish control of territories occupied in the war of 1967.

Security Council Resolution 338 - 1973
Calls on all parties to abide by Resolution 242.

Security Council Resolution 1397 - 2002
Affirming a vision of the Middle East as a region “where two States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders,” the Security Council calls for an end to the violence and for a return to the negotiating table.

Security Council Resolution 1405 - 2002
The Council calls for the lifting of restrictions imposed on the operations of humanitarian organizations and welcomes the fact-finding team appointed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to investigate recent events in the Jenin refugee camp.

Now, I’m not saying Bush is hypocritical. He’s saying it.

Arf

And by the way.

"I ask Rabin to make concessions, and he says he can't because Israel is too weak. So I give him arms, and he says he doesn't need to make concessions because Israel is strong" -- Henry Kissinger (quoted in Findley's Deliberate Deceptions p.199, quoting from Sheehan's The Arabs, Israelis and Kissinger)

"Whenever we seemed to be having some success with the Arabs, Begin would proclaim the establishment of new settlements or make provocative statements. This behavior ... seriously endangered prospects of peace" Former President Jimmy Carter Quoted in Findley's deliberate Deceptions quoting Fred Khouri's Major Obstacles to Peace.

"I have to tell you that everybody over there [in Israel] should know what the [White House] telephone is: 1-212-456-1414. When you're serious about peace, call us." -- Secretary of State James Baker (06/13/1990) expressing frustration over Shamir/Israel's desire for land over peace quoted in Findley's deliberate Deceptions quoting Thomas Friedman (NYT 06/14/1990).