When it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Iraq Study Group falls into the traps of inappropriately linking stability in Iraq to a solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and of blaming extremism on the absence of peace, rather than recognizing that peace itself is prevented by extremism.

These are critically incorrect assumptions that lead the Iraq Study Group off in counterproductive directions:

• The assumptions lead the group to underplay the importance of Hamas' rejection of Israel and to discount terrorism as an obstacle to progress.
  
• They lead it to be vague about the greatest threat to the region -- to the Arabs as well as Israel -- the effort by extremist Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. Instead of focusing on alternative and serious options regarding this threat, all one hears is a recommendation to leave the issue with the United Nations Security Council and consider engaging Iran in dialogue.
  
• The assumptions also lead to a general misimpression about the sources and goals of extremism in the area.

It has been inevitable historically that when analysts see all problems in the Middle East as coming back to the Arab-Israeli conflict that it leads, as it does in this case, to a minimizing of the extent of hostility that exists toward Israel. For if so much else is dependent on solving that conflict, then one has to delude oneself that parties such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran are not so hostile, in order to believe a solution is possible.

Invariably, this approach neither solves the Arab-Israeli conflict nor helps lessen other serious problems in the region, such as Iraq.

It is good that the Iraq Study Group has reiterated that no U.S. administration will abandon Israel, that peace must be based on Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, and that the only lasting peace will be a negotiated peace such as Israel has achieved with Egypt and Jordan.

Even so, it is of great concern that the underlying concepts of the Iraq Study Group -- the focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the underestimating of the depths of extremism -- would lead U.S. policy in directions that would create even greater obstacles to the peace in the region that we all desire.