CONDI AND CARTER IN THE MIDDLE EAST

So while one of the unindicted crimes-against-humanity-Principals, Condoleezza Rice, tries goading Muqtada al-Sadr into all out war, it looks like another American may have made a breakthrough in a foreign policy goal the Bush Regime has given only lip service: peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers.

Rice, in the Iraqi capital to tout security gains and what she calls an emerging political consensus, said al-Sadr is content to issue threats and edicts from the safety of Iran, where he is studying. Al-Sadr heads an unruly militia that was the main target of an Iraqi government assault in the oil-rich city of Basra last month, and his future role as a spoiler is an open question.

"I know he's sitting in Iran," Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr's latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. "I guess it's all-out war for anybody but him," Rice said. "I guess that's the message; his followers can go too their deaths and he's in Iran."

Kind of like hiding out in... DC. I guess Condi didn't learn any lessons from Bush's stupid and disastrous "Bring 'em on" comments, proving, once again, that the fish rots from the head.

Meanwhile, CNN is reporting that Jimmy Carter, who, predictably, has been viciously attacked by American war-mongers on the far right, says Hamas is prepared to accept negotiated peace with Israel. The Associated Press is reporting the details of Carter's statement.

Former President Carter said Monday that Hamas — the Islamic militant group that has called for the destruction of Israel — is prepared to accept the right of the Jewish state to "live as a neighbor next door in peace."

But Carter warned that there would not be peace if Israel and the U.S. continue to shut out Hamas and its main backer, Syria.

The Democratic former president relayed the message in a speech in Jerusalem after meeting last week with top Hamas leaders in Syria. It capped a nine-day visit to the Mideast aimed at breaking the deadlock between Israel and Hamas militants who rule the Gaza Strip.

"They (Hamas) said that they would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, if approved by Palestinians and that they would accept the right of Israel to live as a neighbor next door in peace," Carter said.

The borders he referred to were the frontiers that existed before Israel captured large swaths of Arab lands in the 1967 Mideast war-- including the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza.
In the past, Hamas officials have said they would establish a "peace in stages" if Israel were to withdraw to the borders it held before 1967. But it has been evasive about how it sees the final borders of a Palestinian state and has not abandoned its official call for Israel's destruction.

Extremists in Israel and the U.S. Bible Belt oppose returning to the 1967 border and oppose talking with Hamas. The written statement Carter brought back from the Hamas leader read: "'If President Abbas succeeds in negotiating a final status agreement with Israel, Hamas will accept the decision made by the Palestinian people and their will in a referendum monitored by international observers ... even if Hamas is opposed to the agreement."

Although American Hate Talk Radio and the rest of the lunatic fringe of the right wing noise machine are reporting that no Israeli's would meet with Carter, the peacemaking ex-president did meet with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Eli Yishai, one of several deputy prime ministers. "Peres scolded Carter for meeting with Hamas but Yishai, of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, said he was willing to meet with Hamas leaders to discuss a prisoner exchange."