As usual, Krauthammer gets it right.

American critics, beginning with the secretary of state, object to this goal of destroying Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority. As The Washington Post explained in an editorial, we need the continued presence of “the leadership of the Palestinian Authority as well as its principal security services” because they have been “the only available instruments for stopping Palestinian terrorism.”

Good God. Instruments for stopping terrorism? They are instruments for aiding and abetting, equipping and financing, supporting and glorifying terrorism, which they call “martyrdom operations.” The question of capabilities is irrelevant. Of course they have the capability. But they have no intention of exercising it.

This is like arguing at the beginning of the Afghan war that we should not attack the Taliban because they were the only instrument in Afghanistan available for bringing al Qaeda to heel. Sure. But they were allied with al Qaeda, commingled with al Qaeda and shared al Qaeda’s objectives. They had no intention of ever stopping al Qaeda.