Posted on 01/20/2008 2:40:28 PM PST by SJackson
As Bush scrambles for a gilded legacy he'll find none, certainly not in this region, writes Ayman El-Amir*
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/880/op5.htm
There is a remarkable tendency among failed heads of state to try to shine on the world stage by embarking on foreign tours to countries where they are showered with the trappings of distinguished dignitaries that by far exceed any recognition they could hope for at home. It makes no difference whether the visitor is the autocratic head of a failed Third World country or the president of the most liberal democracy. Foreign affairs provide ample space for stardom.
Such is the case with the whirlwind visit of US President George W Bush to some Middle East and Gulf Arab states. It is not much different from the visit 34 years ago by former president Richard Nixon to a number of Arab countries. Nixon undertook his tour less than three months before he was forced to resign in August 1974 over the Watergate scandal. President Bush's hosts, both Arab and Israeli, know that the tour is the swan song of a failed US presidency, and they are playing along. With US presidential primaries in full swing, George W Bush is slowly sinking into lame-duck status. In these circumstances, it is almost a rule of thumb that an outgoing administration should not engage in international agreements or initiatives that would tie the hands of an incoming administration when it assumes government. That was how the Bush administration, which came to power in January 2001, scuttled the promising Clinton initiative that brought former Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak to Camp David for the most substantive negotiations since the Oslo Accords, whatever the merits or drawbacks of the latter. So, the Bush administration may offer incentives, sponsor meetings and send envoys to promote a Palestinian-Israeli agreement, but nothing more.
Of course it would be a welcome consolation prize for a lacklustre administration if the Palestinians and the Israelis could negotiate an agreement on the so-called two-state "vision" of the US president. The "Bush vision" of a two-state solution actually goes back 60 years ago to when the UN partition plan not only provided for two states in Palestine but also made the proclamation of Israel contingent on the establishment of a Palestinian state. There was no promise of US engagement to bring Bush's "vision" to fruition. He called for the end of occupation, which pleased some Arabs who overlooked the administration's policy of referring to Palestinian occupied lands as "disputed territories", but there was no reference to the status of Jerusalem or Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. This is a far cry from steadfast US policy since 1967 that considered all Israeli settlements as "illegal and an obstacle to peace", as enunciated by several US permanent representatives before the UN Security Council. Lastly, and most seriously, Bush adopted the latest Israeli position that demands recognition of Israel as "a Jewish state" -- response to recent Palestinian and international reminders of UN Resolution 194 of 1948 guaranteeing the return of Palestinian refugees and compensation for those who do not wish to return. Bush suggested the establishment of "international mechanism" to compensate refugee Palestinians, effacing their right of return. Not a single Arab leader Bush met challenged him on this new turn of policy, at least not publicly. Meanwhile, President Bush was visibly moved as he duly visited the Jewish holocaust memorial Yad Vashim. However, he refused to lay a wreath at the tomb of departed president Arafat when he visited Ramallah, or hold meetings in the office of the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas because a picture of Arafat was hanging there.
The US president's confused perspective on fighting terrorism has been the central preoccupation and most serious challenge of his presidency. His strategy lumped terrorism with fighting military occupation in Palestine, the domestic political and military conflict in Afghanistan, greedy imperial ambition in Iraq and concern over the rising star of Iran as a challenge to Israeli regional hegemony. That is why his tour did not include Syria, which supports the Palestinian liberation struggle and hosts Hamas's leadership, and of course Iran, which he called "a threat to world peace". If terrorism has been the hallmark preoccupation of the Bush presidency, Iran has been his obsession. His visit to Gulf Arab states, all of which are bastions of US air, land and naval power, was mainly to urge them to confront and contain Iran or to support a potential US military strike against it. He is stoking Gulf Arab states' apprehensions of Iran, which directly feeds into Israeli strategy of wanting to be the region's only superpower that could discipline any independent-minded state in the neighbourhood. While aware of the disruptive dangers of a strike or full-fledged war on Iran, the Bush administration's hawks would have no qualms about using Gulf Arab states as both a launch-pad and pawn in any such military confrontation. Israel's worst fear, espoused by President Bush, is that Iran should succeed in its rapprochement efforts with Gulf Arab states. Bush's mission is to keep those states in line against Iran and equip them with shiploads of sophisticated military hardware that they do not need for their development. Gulf Arab states should know that US military protection is not their best national security option. They should rethink their strategy.
President Bush, at the end of his political rope, is looking for something he can call a legacy. For most US presidents, by tradition, concern for the festering Middle East conflict comes as an afterthought towards the end of a term in office, be it four or eight years. Meanwhile, Israel would have created so many new "facts on the ground" that the starting point for negotiations will have moved entirely. Declarations of willingness to compromise on an illegal position under international law are only made in return for Palestinian commitments, signed and sealed, to make deeper concessions. Thus Israel has been growing in size and power on a mountain of historical and political fallacies sustained by firepower, aggression, a succession of myopic US administrations, and a resigned, unquestioning and intimidated American public. That is why the Arab-Israeli conflict is bound to continue in perpetuity. Bush's only point of substance was to advise both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Abbas to "make tough choices".
Judging by his meetings, reactions and statements, President Bush looks very much like a Western colonial ignorant on safari to a strange land, reading lines from some dubious travel guides written by his neo-con partners. What he will bring back is only a collection of strange photographs of exotic places and curious people, if even he pauses to reflect and look back. Before he knows it, the swan song will have been sung on his failed presidency.
· The writer is former Al-Ahram correspondent in Washington, DC. He also served as director of United Nations Radio and Television in New York.
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A lame duck president is determined to stick to his script, writes Galal Nassar
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/880/op3.htm
In his goodbye tour of the region George Bush reiterated his familiar mantra. The common enemy, he insisted, is terror and terrorism. Security, he reminded us, will depend on our ability to stop the "terrorists" from undermining "democracy". The same old tune played to a weary audience and the applause was muted.
With only one year left in office the US president is viewed in his own country, and in Israel, as a lame duck. On the eve of his visit to Israel the newspaper Yediot Aharonot quoted Israel's intelligence report for 2008 as saying that the US administration was too weak to kick-start the peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The US has backed down on military action against Iran and is having trouble rallying international support for sanctions over Tehran's nuclear programme, the paper added.
Mahmoud Abbas also knows that Bush is a lame duck. Fully aware of Israel's resolve to build more settlements, Abbas leaked news that he intended to resign his post for medical reasons. The move was apparently intended to force Bush to pressure Ehud Olmert to start early talks.
Before arriving in the region Bush admitted that he didn't expect a Palestinian state to be created before the end of his term in office, though he voiced the hope that the Palestinians would stop the "terrorists" who are killing "innocent people to stop the progress of democracy". Once again Bush was playing his plaintive old tune, harping on about terror and democracy.
But what terror is he referring to? And who exactly are the terrorists?
The answer is obvious. Terrorists are those who resist US occupation and US policy in the region. Bush lumps together the opponents of his policy and calls them terrorists. His regional tour was apparently aimed at putting together a "security plan" to confront Iran despite the fact that the White House Press Secretary Dana Perino denied this was one of the reasons for his trip.
How can anyone in their right mind regard Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Qaeda as equal threats, let alone terrorists as the US president seems always to insist?
In answer to this question the US administration has come up with some interesting sub divisions. For example, Iran is not a terrorist state but the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is a terrorist outfit. Syria is not a terrorist state but a rogue state that supports terror. Al-Qaeda is definitely terrorist but Hizbullah is somewhere in between -- it is not a terrorist group when it engages in electoral politics but is so when it leads resistance against Israel. Hamas, on the other hand, is evil when it wins elections, and definitely terrorist when it takes up resistance in Gaza. Islamic Jihad is a terrorist group only for so long as it cooperates with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Do Arab countries, particularly those included in Bush's tour, agree with the US assessment?
Arab countries, with the exception of Syria, object to Tehran's links with Hizbullah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Saudi Arabia and Egypt have been publicly trying to steer Syria away from Iran. Most Arab countries agree that Al-Qaeda is a terrorist organisation and have cooperated with the US in fighting Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is not just fighting America but all Arab and Islamic governments. Recently it has launched attacks in Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania and claimed to be involved in operations in occupied Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon.
It makes sense for Arab countries to take sides with the US against Al-Qaeda. To take the Americans' side against Iran and Syria is an altogether different matter, for three main reasons:
First, Iran and Syria cannot be labelled terrorist. Even Washington avoids accusing them of terror though it wants them to cut their links with resistance groups -- the groups that Washington views as terrorist. Currently the Bush administration is trying to sort things out with both Iran and Syria. The US knows that it cannot get out of Iraq without normalising its relations with both. The two countries could both be asked to contribute troops if and when an Islamic deterrence force is formed to replace withdrawing US troops. So why would Arab countries antagonise Iran and Syria at a time when the US is trying to get on their good side?
Second, Arab neighbours of Iran and Syria fear that a US political and security campaign, covert or overt, against either may result in war. And they don't want to be dragged into a proxy war.
Third, a conflict with Iran, or Syria, may foment disturbances, if not civil war, in Arab countries. Most Arabs view Israel, not Iran and Syria, as the main threat in the region. And yet President Bush made a point of visiting Israel first in his tour and pledging his support for the "Jewishness" of the state, a point which many in this region consider an affront to Islam and Muslims. The US president may have just given fuel to anti-Israeli fanaticism in the region.
Most Arab countries see terror as a localised problem, not an international threat, and definitely not one worth waging war over as the US would have them belief. Most Arabs are just as sick and tired of Bush and his administration as they are of Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahri.
In Sharm El-Sheikh, Dina Ezzat watches a sombre finale to the Middle East sojourn of George Bush
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/880/fr1.htm
"Let us shake hands, Mr President," a slightly uptight George W Bush told his poised host President Hosni Mubarak. Meeting for the first time since 2004, the brief handshake for the cameras seemed emblematic of cool relations between the two leaders.
The nine-day Middle East tour that saw the US president gleefully greeted last Wednesday at the Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion airport followed by moments of covert tension in the occupied Palestinian territories and bombastic receptions in several Gulf states ended on a rather fact-of-matter note in Sharm El-Sheikh. A cautious President Mubarak reminded his guest that Washington needed to do more to bring about a Palestinian- Israeli peaceful settlement.
"During our consultations, I underlined Egypt's supporting stances to the cause of [Middle East] peace and my expectation to see President Bush continue with his follow-up of negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli sides; hoping that a peace agreement could be reached before the end of his term in office," Mubarak said in a brief statement addressed to the press. Speaking with Bush standing next to him, the Egyptian president also called on his American counterpart to apply caution in handling the standoff between Tehran and the West and to accord adequate attention to the "mutual interests" that Egypt and the US share in their "decades-long strategic relationship".
Egyptian and American official sources say that the 45- minute Bush-Mubarak meeting was not intended to be a press event.
Sources were careful not to play on Cairo's disappointment over a recent US Congress decision to freeze $100 million of an annual $1.3 billion in aid that the US provides Egypt. "This visit was not tailored to address differences. It is too late for that since this [US] president is leaving in a few months," commented one Egyptian diplomat. He added that the Bush "stop- over" in Egypt was strictly an opportunity for the two leaders to meet and review regional events, "with no great expectations, at least on our side".
In his press statement in Sharm El-Sheikh yesterday, Bush tactfully said that Egypt would continue to be a strategic partner of the US, but said little else. Egyptian officials, speaking on background, were sceptical of the ability of President Bush to use the remainder of his term in office to foster better bilateral relations. They were also sceptical of the chances of Bush to conclude even as much as the outlines of a final peace deal between the Palestinians and Israelis, despite the "genuine energy" they say he directs towards the Palestinian-Israeli file.
According to one diplomat, "the entire process is not particularly encouraging. The references are not clear or specified, since the UN and Madrid references are now fudged in favour of vague Annapolis terms of reference." He added, "what Bush offered during this visit, especially with the statements he made in Israel and [the Palestinian territories] indicate much, even unprecedented, bias towards the Israeli version for a settlement. It would be hard to see how this bias could yield a deal to which any Palestinian leader could sing or sell to his people."
Judging by press statements, Bush made no real demands on the Israeli government to stop its settlement activities. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who joined the US president in the region and who is planning regular return trips during the coming few months, said the parties should not get "hung up on settlement activity" and move forward on negotiations.
Nor did the US president demand a halt to Israeli military operations in the Palestinian territories that take a serious humanitarian toll on civilians. The brutal Israeli onslaught in Gaza on Tuesday that left 19 dead, along with covert and overt threats made by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to launch a wide military offensive on the Strip, indicate that the Bush visit has emboldened Israel and that more bloodshed will follow. "The crime [in Gaza on Tuesday] is the ugly fruit of Bush's visit to the region," said Khaled Meshaal, Hamas's exiled political leader.
Moreover, Bush pressed upon the Palestinians to accept that there will be no deal that will grant them even the territories occupied by Israel during the 1967 War, and that there will be no right of return for Palestinian refugees. He also shrugged the rights and fate of the close to two million 1948 Arabs in Israel by insisting on the Jewish character of Israel. "Such statements constitute a political crime," said Nabil Shaath, senior adviser to the Palestinian president.
Beyond this, Arab officials are tight-lipped. "As far as we are concerned the outcome of the Bush visit [will] be measured by the kind of changes it will have on the ground," commented Hesham Youssef, chief of cabinet of the Arab League's secretary-general. He added, "if we see an end to the [illegal Israeli] settlement activities and an effort to facilitate final status talks then we would say we got something."
Meanwhile, there is an unmistakable concern over the harsh tone that Bush used in attacking Iran. "The statements of President Bush reflect the views of the US on Iran. As for the Arab views on this file, they are clearly reflected in Arab League resolutions and those of the Gulf Cooperation Council," Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said Tuesday. These resolutions call for peaceful management of the standoff and underline Arab-Persian common interests.
On internal political issues in the Arab world, the visiting US president, who once declared democratisation of the Arab world as a do-or-die mission, had but few remarks to offer beyond confirming his understanding that social, political and economic reforms "take time".
Bush announced he would return to the Middle East in May. The trip is designated to mark the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel. For Palestinians and Arabs, six decades of the Nakba (dispossession) is nothing to celebrate. (see pp. 3,5,6,9,10,11)
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
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See any hint of BIAS in that article?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ?
Moreover, Bush pressed upon the Palestinians to accept that there will be no deal that will grant them even the territories occupied by Israel during the 1967 War, and that there will be no right of return for Palestinian refugees. He also shrugged the rights and fate of the close to two million 1948 Arabs in Israel by insisting on the Jewish character of Israel.”
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Good....so be it.
What tripe. Where was BJ Clinton during his last year in office, other than visiting golf courses, working on his “legacy,” as well as finalizing his list of Presidential pardons.
I don’t agree with his big spending and loose position on illegal immigrants, but GWB has done much more with his 8 years than BJ could have hoped to accomplish.
That's what he was doing. Thank you for not asking what he was doing years 6 and 7.
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