The US government clearly does not want to rein Sharon back too early, but logically if it did, what would it have to do, perhaps together with the IMF, to engineer an immediate, drastic, and uncontrovertible liquidity crisis for Israel?
After all Saddam's oil cuts must be intended to raise the extra cost of oil for the west by billions of dollars.
So just to play counterfactual history before history has been completed, what would an ethical US president do to bring Israel to heel financially?
Chris Burford
London