Bush is also wrong about the Israeli hurricane

America finds it hard to remember when a president was so hapless during a national crisis as George Bush has been during the disaster in New Orleans. The White House's main defense is a neo-conservative ideology that places responsibility on the local authorities. The first neo-conservative president, Ronald Reagan, expressed its formative motto in his catchy way: Get the government off the backs of the people. But with Bush, during a tragic week, the government was a heavy burden on the backs of tens of thousands of groaning people in the dead city. Now, as Bush is advocating a line of policy vis-a-vis the Sharon government, it is best to search for cover.

In an effort to bolster Sharon in the Likud wars, Washington is now asking Europe to get off his back, not to demand that he carry out more gestures to the Palestinians. This request will be conveyed to the European leaders who are coming to the opening of the United Nations' General Assembly next week. The secretary of state will reiterate the request in a meeting with her Quartet partners, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia. This is bad advice, lazy, unimaginative and narrow-sighted. It reminds one that during the past decades, the Americans have failed to anticipate almost all of the developments outside of its borders, from the Islamic revolution in Iran and the Soviet upheaval to the Palestinian intifada.

This is an interesting phenomenon, which touches upon the failures of the political oracle not only in the United States. But it is happening to a superpower that - despite a blind limitation on federal involvement - has developed a near compulsion for international intervention since the fall of the Soviet Union. This has led to two wars in Iraq and the brandishing of a big stick in every corner of the world - but without speaking softly as recommended by President Teddy Roosevelt, the father of this doctrine. From the simultaneous start of both their terms, Bush has spoken very softly with regard to Sharon, unlike his father, who sent the secretary of state to give Jerusalem the White House's telephone number, and suggested to Yitzhak Shamir that he call when he decides to move the stalled peace process forward.

Even after devising the road map, the American superpower left it to die, and each time another excuse was created to explain why it was allowing the plan's entire timetable to dissolve. Now, in the most banal way, the Bush administration thinks that it is best to defend its precious Sharon and even internationalize his protection so that he can defeat Netanyahu in the primaries. But the White House - which after all the lessons of September 11 appointed as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency a Bush crony, one Michael Brown (previously fired from his job as manager of a horse association) - fails to comprehend Israeli politics.

If Sharon wins the primaries because of promises not to advance the peace process in any way, it would be better that he's not elected. And Washington is wrong if it thinks that even Sharon can toss aside such pre-election promises after the vote. A wise administration would have tried to get Sharon to stick with his earlier statements, and would have prepared for two possibilities that are both preferable to what it chose. One is that Sharon will win despite sticking to his new policy line. The other possibility is that Sharon will fail and let Netanyahu tie the noose of diplomatic recalcitrance around his own neck. If this happens, then even the most junior translator of the Israeli media at the embassy in Tel Aviv would know that Sharon would embark on a new and fascinating political path.

If the administration had acted in this way, it would have tested its strength - without a big stick but also without speaking meekly - to indirectly influence the wavering Likud delegates to opt for a bold Sharon likely to bring them an electoral victory and not for a scheming, sloganeering Bibi.

This is an "if" that is difficult to put Bush to the test. Because if Bush thought correctly, and if my grandmother had wheels, he would not have lost credit this week, justifiably, in the eyes of most of the important commentators in America, and even according to that intoxicating darling of politicians - the daily public opinion survey.