BEIRUT -- Since the Taliban's defeat in Afghanistan, the United States has been focusing on that long-standing "rogue state" and newly anointed member of the "axis of evil," President Saddam Hussein's Iraq, as the next target of its "war on terror."

The trouble is that it has encountered a second "rogue state" that is all but ruining its prospects of dealing with the first. Of course, the U.S. never calls or perhaps even thinks of it as such, because the state in question is Israel, than which it has no closer ally or more indulged of proteges. But such, in effect, it is.

There has never been a precise definition of what has been variously termed the "rogue," "backlash," "outlaw" or "crazy" state. In practice, it is likely to be an oppressive dictatorship, but that alone has not been sufficient qualification. It must also pose a constant, exceptional threat to the existing order, allying an aggressive nature with the acquisition of disproportionate military power and the development of weapons of mass destruction. And it must be an adversary of the U.S., since it was the U.S. that developed the concept and determined those to whom it applies.