The terminal months of the Bush administration will likely go down in history as a time when the State Department was permitted to set about repudiating virtually every principle to which the administration it serves has been dedicated. The Bush administration summarily dropped its central precondition — an enrichment freeze — for negotiations with Iran. A few weeks ago, there was a similar cave-in to North Korea, which prompted John Bolton to throw in the towel on the Bush administration: “Nothing can erase the ineffable sadness of an American presidency, like this one, in total intellectual collapse.”

The Secretary of State appears intent on broadcasting a display of abject capitulation in small ways as well. Last month, Rice showed up in Beirut to celebrate the formation of a new Lebanese government — a government which is largely the product of Hezbollah’s violence and extortion, and which has been broken to the saddle of Hezbollah’s supremacy in Lebanon. Under these circumstances, a tone falling significantly short of earnest enthusiasm would have been appropriate. Not for Rice:

“Congratulations,” Ms. Rice said as she shook hands with President Michel Suleiman, the former army chief who took office last month, filling a post that had been vacant for six months. “We are all just very supportive of your presidency and your government.” … “this was an agreement that I think served the interests of the Lebanese people. And since it serves the interests of the Lebanese people, it serves the interests of the United States.”

The Secretary of State just re-defined the American interest as one which glowingly approves of the political and military ascendancy of an Iranian terrorist army in Lebanon, just so long as a polite photo-op is possible after the carnage. This was a sly ex post facto effort to diminish the conspicuousness of the Bush administration’s failure to so much as lift a finger on behalf of its ally, Lebanon, during Hezbollah’s putsch this May. All’s well that ends well, right?

And then there is Israel. We learn today from Haaretz that U.S.-Israel relations are being strained by the State Department’s busy-body routine on behalf of all manner of Palestinian complaints, such as Hanan Ashrawi’s daughter’s desire to receive special treatment from the Israeli government over her residency paperwork (Ashrawi’s whining to Rice apparently caused David Welch, the assistant secretary of state, to snap to attention and harass Israeli officials).

And finally we arrive at the “Annapolis process,” that producer of so many traffic jams in Jerusalem, and little else. The last gasp of Annapolis appears set to be a scathing indictment from James Jones, the retired U.S. Army general, on Israel’s policies in the West Bank:

Jones was appointed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice following the Annapolis peace conference last November. His assignment was to draft a strategic plan to facilitate stabilization of the security situation, as a necessary accompaniment to Israeli-Palestinian final-status negotiations. . . .

According to both Israeli and American sources, the envoy’s conclusions about Israel are scathing. Israelis who met with Jones on his most recent visit here a few weeks ago, including Israel Defense Forces officers, said their impression was that the report would be “very harsh, and make Israel look very bad.”

Jones is apparently critical of Israel on two key issues. One is its fairly broad definition of its security interests in the West Bank under any final-status agreement. The other is its attitude toward the PA security services.

Ah, so the American general doesn’t like the security posture that the Israeli military has determined it must assume in order to protect Israeli lives. And he doesn’t like it that the IDF doesn’t take seriously the Palestinian Authority security services, which are dangerously incompetent, but which the United States has been deeply involved in training. Question for General Jones: Would you put the PA security services in charge of protecting American lives from Hamas?

The State Department has been allowed to slip completely off its leash and the whole gang is pursuing its two most favorite pastimes: obsessing over the Palestinians, and making concessions to America’s enemies. Only six more months to go.