Bush returns

In the tradition of other presidential swan-songs, Bush visits the Middle East in order to leave more to his legacy than Katrina, failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the emergeance of a new recession. Why, then, is he almost deliberately stirring up more disquiet in the region?

Like Caesar, he came, he saw (well, made lightning stops in Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia), but did not conquer.
The agenda for President Bush’s May 2008 Middle East visit was unfinished business. No, he didn’t attempt to pull a Bill Clinton and try to broker a last minute peace agreement between Syria and Israel, or the Israelis and Palestinians. Nor did he engage in serious diplomacy, which might have meant meeting with the “evil” leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria. He also avoided such unpleasant encounters during his January visit to the region. Bush eschews all things distasteful. He made one sacrifice to symbolize his sympathy for the U.S. troops in Iraq—giving up playing golf, but not video golf.
Bush did have one pressing priority: to declare, with full fanfare and lofty rhetoric, the United States’ unequivocal support for the state of Israel. What better place to do this than at Israel’s Knesset, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Israeli state. Palestinians driven away from their homes and livelihoods and still waiting for a home of their own call this day—May 15, 1948— “Al-Nakba.”
“America is proud to be Israel’s closest ally and best friend in the world,” Bush reiterated on May 15. He called it the “freest democracy in the Middle East,” without mentioning that Israel denies democratic rights to Palestinians living under occupation.
In a blunt message to Iran, Bush also reassured Israeli leaders that “America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world’s leading sponsor of terror to possess the world’s deadliest weapons would be an unforgivable betrayal for future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” Bush avoided—as he has repeatedly done—any reference to the facts, such as his own December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program.
In Bush’s seven plus years, the Middle East has become more unstable and violent and, in addition, faces a severe refugee crisis in Iraq, with 2.7 million internally displaced Iraqis and over 2.4 million refugees. Bush ignored these proofs of failed policy. He has not spread freedom and democracy to the Middle East. But facts do not interfere with the president’s intentions. He simply repeated his empty message before the Knesset: “We must stand with the reformers working to break the old patterns of tyranny and despair. We must give voice to millions of ordinary people who dream of a better life in a free society.” To realize this vision, Bush predicted that 60 years from now, “Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and Hamas will be defeated, as Muslims across the region recognize the emptiness of the terrorists’ vision and the injustice of their cause.”
By lumping al-Qaeda, a group recognized and condemned by most Muslims and non-Muslims alike as “terrorist,” with Hamas and Hezbollah, both legitimate political parties with grassroots and regional support, Bush highlighted his disconnect from the Middle East. Palestinians who democratically elected Hamas in January 2006 could only sneer at Bush’s “democracy and freedom.”
While he only praised Israel during his visit, he chided Arab leaders and named his usual suspects (Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah). After a two day visit in Saudi Arabia, Bush concluded his five-day Middle East tour at the World Economic Forum in Sharm el Sheikh. “Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail,” Bush lectured the audience on May 18, without specifically naming US ally and Summit host Egypt. In a more direct message to “enemies” Tehran and Damascus Bush added, “We must stand with the good and decent people of Iran and Syria, who deserve so much better than the life they have today. Every peaceful nation in the region has an interest in stopping these nations from supporting terrorism.”
Like his previous visit in January and just as he did before the Israeli Knesset, Bush also raised the “Iran threat,” stating that “every peaceful nation in the region has an interest in opposing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions.” Had the president read the latest Arab Public Opinion Poll conducted by the University of Maryland, he would have learned that most Arabs do not view Iran as a major threat and believe it has a right to its nuclear program. Instead, 86% of those polled in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Egypt and the UAE identified the Arab-Israeli conflict as an important issue to them.
In light of such public opinion facts, Bush could have called for diplomacy between Israel and her neighbors to address long-standing grievances. But Bush placed all the onus on Arab states. When he addressed the World Economic Forum he demanded they “move past their old resentments against Israel.”
 Did he forget that under the 2002 “Saudi Peace Plan,” Arab leaders in Beirut agreed to recognize Israel, in return for ending its occupation of Arab territories? Instead of acknowledging that a just Arab-Israeli peace requires talking to all players, Bush stated that “all nations in the region must stand together in confronting Hamas, which is attempting to undermine efforts at peace with acts of terror and violence.”
In stark contrast, former President Jimmy Carter met with Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus last April. In an April 13 ABC News interview Carter noted, “There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process.”
In two trips to the Middle East in four months, what did Bush accomplish? At the Knesset, Bush missed an opportunity to press Israel to end its occupation of Israeli and Syrian territory. He could have pointed out that continued settlement building will only erode, rather than make possible, the creation of a continguous Palestinian state. Cynics could praise Bush for dramatizing a classical exercise in futility, but as far as brokering peace in the region is concerned, Bush failed—100%.
The president repeated his call for an independent Palestinian state, but offered no help in achieving it. As he approaches his final months in office, his foreign policy achievements appear to be ongoing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and saber-rattling against Iran, plus endless repetition of “freedom and democracy.”
Bush’s latest trip does, however, offer a striking example for the next U.S. President: how to miss an opportunity for peace, by elevating double standards and rhetoric over political courage and diplomacy. 

Farrah Hassen is the Carol Jean and Edward F. Newman Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C