David Brooks, cart ahead of the horse edition

To read David Brooks, you would think that there was peace in the Middle East right now, that there was a viable Palestinian state, that Israeli wasn’t flaunting multiple UN resolutions and international laws, etc. etc., and that Bush’s disinterested position on the situation was a brilliant masterstroke that led to:

Arafat’s death.

Really folks, the reason there is so much optimism here is that Arafat finally croaked, which will hopefully allow Abbas and others to maneuver without being constantly undermined. It’s really about as simple as that.

But it’s not going to be that simple. Rather than inappropriately assigning credit to people for the current hope, Brooks should be pointing out that a lot needs to be done in order to realize that hope. In particular, Bush has to be engaged in the situation… one of the reasons Abbas wasn’t able to do anything the first time around was that nobody in the US helped him.

I haven’t really seen anything yet that makes me think that it is going to be any different this time around, so calm down there Dave… something has to actually happen before awards are handed out.