Shortly after 9-11, The Onion wrote the following article:

U.S. Urges Bin Laden To Form Nation It Can Attack
WASHINGTON, DC? Speaking via closed-circuit television from the Oval Office Monday, President Bush made a direct plea to Osama bin Laden to form a nation the U.S. can attack. "Whether you take over an existing nation like Afghanistan or create a new breakaway republic called, say, Osamastan, the important thing is that you establish an identifiable nation-state with an army, a capital, and clearly defined borders," Bush said. "Maybe you could also sign some quick treaties to definitively establish who your allies are." The president then pledged $600 million to bin Laden for the construction of a state-of-the-art defense headquarters that the U.S. can bomb.

There is a lot of discussion about the temperary or permanent creation of a Palestinian state. It seems like where all this is supposed to be headed. William Safire makes a compelling case for why this is a bad idea (thanks to Jon Osterman for this one):

1. Statehood, even if qualified as provisional or interim, confers a degree of sovereignty. That means control of borders, the ability to make treaties, and to import arms from Iraq and by sea from Iran.
2. Partial statehood would give Arafat control of an airport. A plane loaded with fuel or explosives could hit a major Tel Aviv building within three minutes, too quickly for Israeli jets to scramble. Ritual condemnation would follow.
3. Any form of statehood would limit Israel's ability to search out bomb factories and arrest terrorist leaders. What is now a tolerable sweep into disputed territory would be denounced in the U.N. as invasion pure and simple. That would trigger European economic boycotts and draw Arab allies into a wider war.
Why, then, offer Arafat's autocracy this pre-emptive prize? State Department Arabists claim it would show "movement" away from solid Bush support for Israel and, in the still-dovish Shimon Peres's phrase, offer a "political horizon" to Palestinians. But some of us see recognition of an unreformed P.L.O. as offering a taste of triumph to jihadists from Netanya to New York.

What I mostly pulled from the article is the sense that we were merely setting up a state for the sole purpose of giving someone Israel to go to war with. It's hard to imagine how a war would not occur under these circumstances.

One again, life imitates Onion.