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Lack of timing in Mideast policy
There was nothing especially noteworthy about either Bush's address to the Knesset last week or his speech last Sunday at the World Economic Forum's meeting in Sharm Al Shaikh.
- By Gordon Robison, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 00:15 May 21, 2008
- Image Credit: Illustration: Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News
Remember the 2000 campaign? The one where the Republicans put up as their presidential candidate a Texas governor with no background, and little apparent interest in foreign policy? Their argument at the time amounted to: "not to worry, he may not know much about the world but the people around him are old hands at this stuff".
We all know that did not work out quite the way it was advertised. Still, one might have thought President George W. Bush and his foreign policy team had developed some sense of timing where the Middle East is concerned.
Apparently not. Considered separately there was nothing especially noteworthy about either Bush's address to the Knesset last week or his speech last Sunday at the World Economic Forum's meeting in Sharm Al Shaikh.
One expects American leaders to acknowledge Washington's deep and long-standing ties with Israel. One also expects an administration that has made democracy-promotion a centre piece of its policy to remind Arab leaders that they lag behind pretty much every other part of the world in this respect.
Amazingly, however, the president made little or no effort to separate those two messages. In so doing, he dulled the impact of what should have been an important speech in and to the Arab World.
The Bush administration's efforts to promote democracy and good governance in the Arab World have long been met with mixed reviews throughout the region, and, in any event, are overshadowed by the insane tragedy that is Iraq.
It has been American policy to put our power and prestige behind the ideals of free discourse, the rule of law and open, free, meaningful elections.
Over the Bush administration's tenure there has been progress on all of these fronts in some parts of the Arab World. There has also been backsliding. To what extent either of these is attributable to American action is difficult to say with any certainty.
Regardless of what one thinks of these efforts they are at least worthy of debate. When the president told the World Economic Forum that "too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail" he had a point.
The administration, to its credit, has been saying things like this for several years. To have the president emphasise the point in a major speech delivered in the region at a high profile event like the WEF should have been an important moment - one that might have shifted the terms of debate.
By using the WEF speech as a "bookend" to the Knesset appearance, however, Bush squandered that opportunity. Instead of judging his Sharm Al Shaikh remarks on their merits most people who have commented on the speech have focused only on the contrast with the Knesset address he delivered three days earlier.
There, of course, he praised the Jewish state effusively. One could not seriously have expected him to chide the Israelis in an address that, after all, was part of their national birthday party.
But Bush did spend three full days in Israel - an unusually long span for any presidential visit anywhere - and during that entire period he barely took note of the Palestinians' existence.
Insults the intelligence
His meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas took place not in the West Bank but in Egypt. Afterwards he repeated his administration's talking-point to the effect that he believes a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian settlement to be possible before he leaves office in January.
This sounds good on the news back home, but it insults the intelligence of anyone familiar with the actual state of play between Israel and the Palestinians.
If the Bush administration really wanted a peace accord to be reached on its watch it would have done something about that years ago, rather than discovering the issue only as the clock runs out on this president's term in office.
All of which brings us back to the main question: when this trip was being planned (and, make no mistake, overseas Presidential trips are carefully scripted affairs) did no one notice that the broad image would be one of embracing the Israelis while scolding the Arabs?
I'm no fan of the Bush administration, but I doubt that was the message they were really trying to send. What we saw last week was yet more proof that the real problem in Washington is not a superpower that seeks to be all-controlling. It is an administration so inept it does not even realise when it has inserted its foot in its mouth.
Gordon Robison is a journalist and consultant based in Burlington, Vermont & Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has lived in and reported on the Middle East for two decades, including assignments in Baghdad for both CNN and Fox News.
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