Department of Bad Ideas

Newsweek is suggesting that President Obama make George W. Bush his Mideast envoy:

During the Bush years, Israelis were consistently among the few foreign populations that gave the American president high approval marks--often in far greater proportion than Americans themselves. Senior officials in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, where I worked, spoke on their cell phones daily with their White House counterparts--circumventing the State Department and the Israeli Foreign Ministry entirely.

That closeness paid off. It's no coincidence that, during the Bush years, Ariel Sharon had political cover to suggest "painful concessions" for peace--a euphemism for withdrawal from territory. The unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip--followed by preparations to withdraw from large parts of the West Bank that were interrupted only by the Hizbullah war of 2006--almost certainly would not have happened with anyone else in the White House less trusted to ensure Israel's safety.