Bush's visit spurs doubt in Mideast
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - President Bush wraps up a weeklong tour of the Middle East today, leaving many political observers in the region mystified about the purpose of his visit and doubtful he made inroads with his twin campaigns to foster Arab-Israeli peace and isolate Iran.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - President Bush wraps up a weeklong tour of the Middle East today, leaving many political observers in the region mystified about the purpose of his visit and doubtful he made inroads with his twin campaigns to foster Arab-Israeli peace and isolate Iran.
Bush will return to Washington mostly empty-handed, several political analysts and politicians said.
Arab critics deemed Bush's peace efforts unrealistic, his anti-Iran remarks dangerous, his praise of authoritarian governments disappointing, and his defense of civil liberties ironic.
"There is no credibility to his words after what the region saw during his presidency," said Mohamed Fayek, the Cairo-based director of the nonprofit Arab Organization for Human Rights.
Fayek cited the war in Iraq, the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the Abu Ghraib detainee-abuse scandal. "American policy threw the region off-balance and destabilized it," he said. "The visit caused deep disappointment. I don't see any results."
"Skepticism on all sides is enormous," said Nicholas Pelham, a Jerusalem-based senior analyst with the International Crisis Group.
In a potential setback, Bush received a noncommittal response from the Saudi government to his request for increased oil production to reduce world prices. Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi insisted production would increase only "when the market justifies it," according to news reports from Riyadh.
Bush didn't back down on his warnings to Iran, which he lambasted at nearly every stop on his visit.
He reiterated in Saudi Arabia that a military option was not out of the question, though he emphasized that he would like to find a diplomatic solution to Iran's defiant pursuit of a nuclear program and its alleged funding of extremists in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
Many Persian Gulf countries appear to be moving closer to Iran despite U.S. objections. The country's firebrand president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, appeared at an important gulf summit recently, and Iranian investors play vital roles in the economies of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq.
"I guess the visit was just about making sure the gulf doesn't slip away toward Iran," said Ghanim al-Najjar, the director of the Center for Strategic and Future Studies at Kuwait University.
"All these issues will just stay on the surface because there is no environment to support action against Iran," he said. "Everything will stay on the level of rhetoric rather than reality."
Bush won kudos in the Arab press only when he called for Israel to end "the occupation that began in 1967." But he quickly lost favor by holding up Israel as a regional example and defending embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
The president's trip was tightly controlled and swathed in the opulence that is the hallmark of the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula.
Bush was feted in majestic palaces and at luxurious oases. He held a falcon during a nighttime desert picnic in the United Arab Emirates. He chatted about democracy with a group of Kuwaiti women and smiled as a stream of Saudi military officers saluted him at a red-carpet welcoming ceremony in Riyadh.
Security was tight at the president's destinations, often at great cost to the host countries and at no small inconvenience to locals.
The bustling Emirates city of Dubai was eerily empty as authorities declared a national holiday and cleared the streets the day Bush arrived.
While Arab anger over the visit was largely confined to Web sites and the pages of newspapers, modest demonstrations erupted in Bahrain, Egypt and the Palestinian territories.
"We reject his visit," said Fatima al-Wakeel, 21, a recent university graduate who was part of a small anti-Bush protest in Cairo on Monday. "His hands are tainted with the blood of Palestinians and Iraqis. He's a war criminal."
Bush's final order of business was a brief meeting this morning with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.
In advance of the meeting, Cairo newspapers reported that Egyptian officials were upset with Bush because he failed to mention Egypt when he gave a speech Sunday that praised several Arab countries for tentative democratic reforms.
Read a transcript of
an interview with Bush via
com/bush15