Trapped By His Own Instincts

Try as he might, George Bush is making no progress on the Middle East. Here's why

There are seven ages in a man's life, the poet says, and you can see at least three of them already in George W. Bush's presidency. First came his strange, complicated birth, his narrow escape from a Florida swamp, a President uncertain from the start. Next came the innocent clarity of September and the burst of national unity. The attacks and their aftermath seemed to end all the confusion about who was in charge and showed us what Bush was capable of after all: strength, leadership, even vision.

But he is now in a third age, more challenging than the...

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