Delusional politics are threatening to send the Middle East conflict hurtling down a dangerous path. Ignorance seems to have overcome the Bush administration, despite its overwhelming “intelligence” of the facts on the ground, as it signaled its willingness to endorse Sharon’s unilateral disengagement plan.

While accommodating the Israeli government has always been the prime directive in US foreign policy, the realization that only negotiations and reciprocal concessions would lead to an equitable and lasting peace was thought to be the only “secure” element in the Middle East. Abandoning this principle is nothing less than a blind search for a quick fix.

Subject to three senior aides President Bush is sending to Israel next week to clarify the details of the plan, it appears, in all likelihood that America will support and encourage Israel’s unilateral steps, unceremoniously placing the final nail in the coffin of its very own road map.

To be clear, Sharon’s plan entails evacuating 17 of 21 illegal settlements in Gaza. However, according to Israeli Defense Minister Mofaz, the Israeli army would stay in the Gaza "area." Israel is already building a security zone in Rafah and it appears that while some settlers would be pulled out, Gaza would effectively remain under Israeli control, until, Mofaz has suggested, negotiations with the Palestinians result in a complete withdrawal.

American officials suggest that the withdrawal plan "could reduce friction between Israelis and Palestinians and improve Palestinian freedom of movement," but this seems sourly misguided given Israel’s intention to continue to confront Palestinians, which invariably includes assassination operations, closures and curfews, with results similar to Wednesday’s killing of 15 Palestinians.

Note that even if Israel did not wish to maintain a military presence in Gaza, the Americans would insist upon it for fear that Hamas and Islamic Jihad would be empowered.

The Jewish settlers will be relocated not to Israel proper, but rather to the four remaining Gaza settlements or to the flourishing illegal Jewish settlements in the heart of the West Bank. Sharon intends to enlarge these West Bank settlements to allow them to absorb the Gaza settlers and has requested American aid, presumably economic, in this endeavor, stating that it is necessary for his withdrawal plans to succeed.

If the Americans oblige, and they seem leaning that way, then they would be reneging on their own policy of a complete freeze in settlement activity in the West Bank. Worse they would be actively financing and augmenting a major point of friction between the Palestinians and the Israelis and they would be abetting in obscuring the viability of a Palestinian state.

Naturally, the Americans will show prudent outward concern that a unilateral withdrawal would not rule out negotiations with the Palestinians in the future. Unofficially, with the implementation of Sharon’s plan, the U.S. will resign all efforts at maintaining the peace process by perpetually blaming the Palestinians for the halt in progress.

To silence any possible nagging from the Europeans and the Arab nations, the U.S. has been pushing Israel to make cosmetic alterations to the route of the separation wall and is willing to settle for a promise that Israel will consider such action. The U.S. has for long realized that the appearance of involvement is as effective as actual involvement, with the added bonus that it allows Israel to continue with its objectives unhindered, leaving the American Jewish vote happy.

The attractiveness of Sharon’s plan is that once the separation wall is complete and the evacuation of 17 illegal Jewish settlements in Gaza is implemented, it will appear in the short term that great progress has been made towards solving the conflict. Israel will say that the majority of Palestinians are no longer under occupation.

As Palestinians are tucked away behind a barrier, it will be easier to denote the urgency of dealing with the conflict and this political nightmare for President Bush and his successors can be forgotten about until an undisclosed time in the future.

For the U.S. administration, Sharon’s plan is a cover up for the failure of the road map and a convenient way of removing the Middle East conflict from the President’s agenda, in spite of the fact that it is at polar ends of established U.S. policies. The danger is that the U.S. is washing its hands clean with the eminent blood and suffering the Sharon plan will bring to the Palestinian people.

The shortsightedness of the Sharon plan will eventually recede to reveal a dreadful situation plunged into further chaos that could have been avoided if the U.S. was even-handed. Sadly, it seems the U.S. has surrendered to Sharon’s every whim.