Two Suspicious Items

JTA reported on 8/17 that a Condoleeza Rice visit to the Middle East (a totally useless waste of US taxpayer money) has been called off.

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/109953.html

Condoleezza Rice's widely expected visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority this week in unlikely to happen.

An aide to Mahmoud Abbas said earlier this month that the U.S. secretary of state, having hosted Israeli and Palestinian Authority negotiators in Washington, would make a routine trip to the region on August 20 to oversee peace efforts.

But U.S. diplomatic sources said Sunday that Rice -- who never formally gave a date for her next visit -- will not be flying out to the Middle East in the near future given the Bush administration's over-riding concern with the Georgian crisis.

How convenient. Meanwhile, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi King Abdullah told Iran not to get roped into a pretext for a military attack.

Following a meeting this weekend between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi King Abdullah, Iran was told not to allow the U.S. and Israel to create a pretext for a military attack, a warning interpreted by Tehran that an impending attack is on the horizon.

“Iran should not present on a silver platter the justifications and the pretexts for those who want to drag the region down a dangerous slope,” Egypt’s presidential spokesman Suleiman Awwad said on Saturday.

A cynical person might think that something might be afoot and dear Condi might not want to be trapped in the Middle East like all those American service people should some kind of trouble possibly break out. A cynical person might also notice that JTA and the Debka File, two of the sources cited for these news items, are both Israeli sources.