The American Prospect’s Adam Kushner thinks Dubya’s speech on the future of the Mideast was a poor excuse for a “peace plan”:

Bush should have called for a real state, not a provisional one, and established a timetable contingent on reforms in the Palestinian Authority.

This couldn’t be more wrongheaded. As several commentators have argued convincingly, Bush’s speech wasn’t intended to outline a “peace plan” at all, and so shouldn’t be judged on those terms. Instead, Bush’s pronouncements marked a major shift in U.S. policy — one that sends the clear message that terrorism as a strategy has failed and will always fail, and that no talk of a full Palestinian state can take place in earnest until the necessary preconditions for a workable state are first established. Israel has troops re-occupying most West Bank cities. And The IDF will likely enter Gaza next. Haven’t heard much about it? Of course not. Because we’re not in a negotiating mood, and those who normally scream the loudest about Israeli “aggression” realize as much and have decided to save their breath.

Kushner scolds Bush for “how na