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For the time being he was free

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For the time being he was free.Looking at the doleful Conservative MPs behind him Mr Duncan Smith had managed - again not for the first time - to turn a crisis for Mr Blair into a leadership crisis for his own party. At which point Mr Duncan Smith rose majestically and accused Mr Blair of being equivocal He had lost it Mr Blair looked more content than a liberated Iraqi. He wished he did know who it was.For once Mr Blair's answers were clear and transparent. Yes, he was raising questions about the source of the Today programme's story, the one who alleged that Downing Street had "sexed up" intelligence material No, Mr Blair did not know who the source was That was the whole point.

No, Mr Blair insisted, he was not questioning the integrity of the intelligence service as a whole. Somehow or other - it is a form of genius - the Conservative leader managed to ask several questions that Mr Blair was able to dismiss unequivocally. Mr Blair was vulnerable. At least that was how it seemed until Mr Duncan Smith rose to face his open goal. There was Mr Blair in the Commons yesterday, still without the discovery of a single weapon of mass destruction to protect him, his senior ministers screaming about rogue elements in the security services and former cabinet ministers alleging that he had duped us all That is quite a political cocktail. Not for the first time, Tony Blair should send a thank-you note to Iain Duncan Smith. What you can't do is to have it both ways, as Tony Blair has learnt to his cost over Iraq.a.hamilton independent.co.uk More from Adrian Hamilton.

One road leads to possible peace, the other to a process that will fail once the presidentials get under way and the process is supposed to move to the next stage; one leads to a viable Palestinian state, the other to yet one more betrayal of the Palestinian cause. And if it all goes wrong after that, he will have done his best and done a lot to improve Israel's security.Whether you believe in this, more cynical, interpretation of events or the more optimistic scenario depends on your view of the American President. As for Bush, he can present it in next year's presidentials as a breakthrough. The Palestinians aren't in a position to refuse it, and it isn't in Israel's interests to do so, while both their populations could do with a pause in the mutual terror. Far from being compelled to sign unwillingly to the first phase of the road-map, Sharon is quite prepared to accept the limited gestures required of him in withdrawing from incursions into Palestinian and dismantling the illegal settlements (mostly tent towns and trailer parks) established since 2001.The harder concessions - dismantling the permanent settlements made since 1967, sharing Jerusalem as a capital, dismantling the security wall now being built, negotiating any return of refugees - can be safely put off For the moment, phase one will be enough.

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