Frank Rich, in The Bush Doctrine, R.I.P.:

The result — the catastrophe of the administration’s handling of the Middle East — is clear: 15 months of procrastination and conflict avoidance followed by a baffling barrage of mixed messages that have made Mr. Bush’s use of the phrase “without delay” the most elastically parsed presidential words since his predecessor’s definition of sex. It takes some kind of perverse genius to simultaneously earn the defiance of the Israelis, the Palestinians and our Arab “allies” alike and turn the United States into an impotent bystander.