Was Arafat's Death Supposed To Be Karl Rove's Surprise?

Arafat possibly poisoned: doctors.

Think about it. The Jewish lobby would have been wildly happy. The whole Middle East process would be thrown open - at least apparently - and Bush's Iraq adventure would be seen in a new light... The Arab "bad guys" would be going wild in the streets, great footage for CNN: thousands of screaming Islamic fundamentalist (or not) demons unleashed a few days before polling.

Whereas Clinton hailed Arafat as a man of peace, the Bush administration has consistently painted him as an ogre and an impediment to peace (i.e. standing in the way of Sharon's steamroller). His sudden death would have been very welcome on FOX News, for starters, and Iraq would definitely move to the back-burner for a while.

And while Bush's neo-conservative team have alienated many parts of the US military, the intelligence community and even Cherie Blair, the one group of "friends" they can still count on are their Israeli masters. Who better to slip the mickey to the old man, who has been virtually incarcerated in his own home for the past two years?