As Bush scrambles for a gilded legacy he'll find none, certainly not in this region, writes Ayman El-Amir* 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.
