All Intensive Purposes

[A] deep bipartisan gloom has descended over the American political class as it contemplates events in the Middle East – and, above all, Iraq.

It has been left to Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, to make a stab at restoring the spirit of can-do optimism. When it was put to her recently that the Middle East was in crisis, she remarked perkily that the Chinese word for crisis combines the characters for danger and opportunity. This observation – which might be mildly interesting if you came across it in a Christmas cracker – somehow failed to persuade sceptics that the Bush administration is on top of the situation.

Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times.

// posted by t.s. @ 8:30 AM