I attended the Israel Project-sponsored VIP call-in press conference with Silvan Shalom last week, wherein he explained Israel's reaction to the "Neville Chamberlain Report" compiled by James Baker & Company. Mr. Shalom's pungent, good-humoured, but firm, response can be synopsized as follows:

• Israel's relationship with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas is not linked to the situation in Iraq. They are two separate issues. Solving one problem will not solve the other, nor can Israel be used as the lever whereby the Iraq problem is solved. America's and Great Britain's dealings with Iraq are entirely internal affairs for those countries to solve.
  
  
• Israel never asked the USA to "protect" Israel in the event of an Iranian attack, nuclear or otherwise, so Mr. Rumsfeld's replacement was entirely out of line in his totally irrelevant comment. The State of Israel has an immaculate record of dealing with its enemies few, if any, countries on the planet have ever matched in their respective histories, and there is no interest on Israel's part in surrendering its self-determination through asking another country to fight its wars for it. Israel does very well on its own.
  
  
• Israel shall commence to negotiate with and make peace with Iran, Syria and the PA when the following conditions are met, which emulate those conditions Anwar Sadat and the king of Jordan satisfied: the total renunciation of bloodshed, the recognition of Israel's right to exist, and the entering into of peaceful treaties that are mutually agreeable to both sides of the bargaining table. There will be no kissing and making up in one territory at the same time bloodshed and violence are perpetrated in another region on the part of the Arab "bargaining" team.
  
  
• The perception of the "Chamberlain Plan" by the State of Israel is that this "train the Iraqis, then cut and run" gambit is entirely 180 degrees from how the situation should be handled. To leave now, and to likewise draw Syria and Iran into the bargaining process simply because they are the supply lines to the Iraqi terrorists, is like asking the wolves to help you guard the hen-house.
  
  
• The "Chamberlain Plan" is telling the state-subsidized terrorists of Iran and Syria that terrorism works; therefore, when the West accedes to Syrian and Iranian demands, they will only ask for more.
  
  
• And lastly, the Golan Heights are not on the bargaining table, nor are the Heights for the USA or the UN to use as a bargaining chip under any circumstances.

Based on my journalistic explorations in other quarters, the "Chamberlain Plan" is a product of three bald-faced frauds: the big joke at the London Daily Telegraph when Iran's Ahmadinejad started mouthing off about his presumed nuclear capabilities was that Iran was playing the old Peter Sellers The Mouse That Roared trick. That is, if you are a tiny, broke country with no assets, invent a fictitious "mystery bomb" with which to blackmail the rest of the world into providing your country with foreign aid. Evidently, this is exactly the case with Iran: the Jerusalem Post reports that, based on the true number of centrifuges Iran has, it will take until at least 2010 to manufacture a sufficient quantity of plutonium for even a dirty bomb.

The second fraud is that perpetrated by the US Democrats now dominating Congress, which is that they have in their pockets an easy "fix it now" solution to Iraq. They don't. The Democrats propose simply moving the troops to neighboring countries and organizing them as Rapid Deployment Forces to swoop in every time matters get out of hand in Iraq, leaving the poor troops with the option of it being Invasion Hour and D-Day as frequently as once every two weeks, with each international mini-invasion being more effectively met as the enemy sorts out our modes and methods of deploying our forces.

The third fraud is that the USA and Great Britain are the actual problem source, when their sole function has been as the sole source of on-the-ground solutions to ending outbreaks of internecine and tribal civil war.

The Times of London has also repeatedly done things our press never dares to do: actually ask Iraqis what they think is the best solution. All the high-ranking Iraqi military and their lowliest junior enlisted agree that the professionalism and freedom from factionalism which has characterized US and British troops' conduct in war are what Iraq needs most. They do not want us to leave until their military has acquired that same apolitical panache and metier.

It is entirely reasonable to find the "Chamberlain Report" highly suspicious and a product of arrogant, disingenuous naivete for providing little if any reference to Iraqi opinion in the document, when it is their country that is at stake. If the American and Iraqi public wanted pink castles in the clouds drawn for them, wouldn't they have better asked their own children to do so, rather than a former US Secretary of State?

Mr. Shalom was absolutely correct to put this turkey right back onto the USA and England's plate. Iraq is not an Israeli problem, nor is the solution to Iraq the resolution of any form of agreement with the PA, Hamas, Iran or Syria. None of these latter regimes are even remotely qualified to be characterized as "partners for peace," any more than FDR would have considered Tojo as a partner for peace on Pearl Harbour Day. FDR knew what he had to do. Silvan Shalom knows what needs to be done. So ought we as well.