Bush to focus on relaunched peace process

Washington: Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, US President George W. Bush has vowed to transform the Middle East for the sake of American security. On Wednesday, Bush sets off on a nine-day tour of a region that, if anything, has transformed him.

The trip will showcase a president shifting his focus from the big idea of a free and democratic Middle East to more traditional US foreign-policy goals: an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement, the containment of a threatening state - in this case Iran - and the assurance of US energy security at a time of $100-a-barrel oil.

Whatever topic he discusses in meetings, Iraq is likely to be a key factor in the background.

"After vowing to transform the Middle East, the administration is submitting to it, resorting to the sort of process-driven incremental diplomacy that previous administrations had pursued and that this administration had disdained," says Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

"President Bush is no longer trying to transform the Middle East from afar. He's trying to manage it in incremental ways by arm-twisting and jawboning leaders in intimate, private sessions."

That does not mean Bush has given up on his vision for a transformed region, others add. Rather, they see Bush largely making this trip with the goal of solidifying gains made in Iraq - thereby securing the defining foreign-policy action of his presidency as a "plus" for his legacy.

"Almost all they [in the White House] are doing [on this trip] is because of Iraq or has an Iraq element to it," says Kenneth Pollack of the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"They understand the president's legacy depends on it." Bush appears to be encouraging progress toward a Palestinian state for its own sake, Pollack adds, but what he's really doing is pushing the peace process as a quid pro quo for "garnering support all around the region on Iraq."

White House officials bristle at suggestions that the president has waning relevance in the region - or that he has pulled back from the "freedom agenda" he laid out in his second inaugural address.

They point out that he will make it the theme of what they say is a major speech in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.

At a pretrip briefing with reporters last week, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said that the promotion of democracy and freedom as a "counterpoint" to the ideology of terrorism remains "the essence of [Bush's] strategy." It will be a highlight of his trip, Hadley said.

"It is integral to the president's strategy for how to bring stability and prosperity to the region and to make it a bulwark against terror, that there be progress in terms of freedom and democracy," Hadley said. "So no, I don't think he's pulled back."

Illegal colonies

Although Bush may well talk about freedom, other pressing concerns are likely to crowd it out - such as Iran.

Over three days in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Bush will focus on the relaunched peace process and efforts to establish a Palestinian state before he leaves office.

While some observers expect a dramatic announcement - perhaps on abolishing illegal Israeli colonies - the White House continues to dampen such expectations by saying the president is primarily looking to support the efforts of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Some experts also suspect the president's agenda allows for a surprise side trip to Iraq, or even to Lebanon.

Back to Iran, Bush will be emphasising to leaders in the region - who are more interested in avoiding conflict with Tehran - why they need to resist its rising influence.

At the same time, he will have to explain to a confused audience why the recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which concluded that Tehran had stopped a nuclear weapons programme in 2003, does not mean that the international community should relax efforts against Iran's progressing nuclear energy programme.

Policy shift

• 2001: No clear foreign policy when Bush became president.
• 2003: Promised democracy and liberty in the Middle East.
• 2008: Iran containment, secure and affordable oil supplies, secure Israel and Middle East peace treaty