As Bush nears leaving office it appears certain that the Arabs have to be blamed for all his failures, writes Gamil Mattar* Has the autumnal conference on Palestine become a US presidential ritual? President Bill Clinton was loath to leave office without kindling some hope among the Palestinians of a just peace. So in his last autumn as president he organised a conference. Undoubtedly, many of its participants realised that one of Clinton's objectives was to lay blame at Yasser Arafat's feet for the failure to achieve a Middle East peace settlement before the end of his term. That objective was easy enough to achieve. Talks were held in complete secret. Some rather offensive photos of Arafat appeared in the American press. Then it was "leaked" to the media that Arafat had turned down a very generous offer. What was not mentioned, of course, was that the Palestinians had rejected similarly "generous" offers in the past, because what was "generous" to the US and Israel was far less than any Palestinian leader could legitimately accept. Not that this would have made much difference by that time. The meeting accomplished its objective. World capitals scowled at Arafat and Arab leaders reproached him for forfeiting a precious opportunity. Bush's proposed conference (or assembly, or "meeting") for this autumn is obviously supposed to cover up, though I suspect it will crown, the flagrant and deliberate failures to handle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict fairly and justly. The Clinton and Bush administrations have nothing in common apart from this. Aside from his adventures with Monica Lewinsky on the eve of his departure from the White House, Clinton had a highly positive record in political, social and economic policy domestically and externally. In foreign policy, the US under his leadership was notably successful in the Balkans and in promoting globalisation in favour of his country's interests at home and abroad. The Bush administration's stock plummeted from bad to worse. The American economy is plagued by a budgetary deficit of unfathomable proportions while defence spending has soared and while his administration has relentlessly gnawed away at education, health and family care, and every other conceivable social support and protection system. In the war in Iraq, American forces suffered more serious debacles than any they met in Vietnam, and the social and political repercussions of these are certain to take a harsher and more violent toll. The US under the Bush administration has lost every shred of the credibility the US needs in order to retain its material and moral stature at the head of the world order. It lost its credibility in a so-called war on terror, the justifications for which and ferocity of which still defy the comprehension of most countries and peoples of the world, even though the number of countries in the US-led coalition at the time this war was launched exceeded the size of any military alliance in modern times. Every passing day in this autumn of the Bush administration confirms the eroding popularity of this president and the dwindling prestige of the US abroad. People in the US and abroad can not help but to compare Bush's current popularity ratings with those of Bill Clinton in his autumnal year and those of Hillary Clinton today, and those of a likely Republican presidential candidate who is even further to the right than Bush, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In American eyes, Bush does not look good at all. Abroad, Bush had never looked good, of course. But it was particularly significant that, this autumn, the Nobel commission awarded the prize in peace to Bush's last electoral rival, causing people to compare Bush's popularity ratings with those of Al Gore. Why should the record of failure and dwindling popularity ratings of an outgoing president matter to us here? Because an administration in such a pitiful position must surely be looking for Arab and Muslim governments and political forces upon which to pin its dismal failures, and above all its complete failure over the past eight years to set into motion the machinery for a just peace to the Middle East conflict, or for anything it could call a peace. It is not difficult to predict who the Bush administration will point its finger at. They'll reach into their usual bag of bogeymen and ogres: terrorists and extremists, rogue states and the "axis of evil", and the leaders of all factions in Iraq. If Condoleezza Rice gets her way, Arab states will climb aboard this autumn's meeting and she can blame them if it collapses. Or, if it succeeds in producing assorted understandings and recommendations, American officials will not say, when the situation falls apart again, that Israel did not fulfil its end of the bargain and that Israel sabotaged the process with its raids and assassinations and detentions. They will say that the Arabs did not live up to their commitments, that the Arabs did not help salvage the Palestinian economy, did not dismantle and disarm Hamas and Hizbullah, did not establish "an economic region in the Middle East that would enable Israel to reassure itself of its future," and did not sufficiently amend their laws, educational systems and customs. In fact, we have already had a hint that this will be the American administration's end of autumn chant because very similar notions were uttered by the head of the US National Security Council chief only a few days ago, this chief being one of the most rabid anti-Arab and anti-Muslim figures in the Bush administration. But more significant are the non- binding decisions issued by Congress in order to further undermine international peace and security and the prospects of peace and security in the Middle East in particular. In short, whether the Arabs take part in the meeting in November or not, they will be held responsible for American foreign policy, as designed by Condi et al. Therefore, I was not surprised by the mounting media campaign against Arabs and Muslims over the past few weeks calling for a reinvasion of Gaza, for a war against Syria, and for the reoccupation of Lebanon. It was not surprising to find this fed by officials and spokespersons from Israel, the US and elsewhere who make no bones about their hatred of Palestinians and Muslims and who have no fear of being accused of racist and religious incitement. Nor was I surprised by the vehemence of the attack against Arabs and Muslims and some American intellectuals who have attempted to offer an objective and humane interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This frenzy of hate mongering didn't surprise me because we've seen it before: every time the Arabs are on the verge of offering more concessions and appear to be bending under American pressures, and every time a breakdown in the process requires an Arab/Muslim scapegoat. So we might as well steel ourselves, because the works are in progress to pave the way for the expected failure of the Annapolis meeting and the subsequent campaign of distortion that will be unleashed against Arabs and Muslims this autumn, the last autumn of Bush and of Rice who has not had a single foreign policy success. Several days ago, I heard Arab League Secretary- General Amr Moussa offer his opinion on the forthcoming meeting, the positions of the various parties on the situation in the region and developments in the preliminary meetings that took place in New York. I have no bones to pick with anything he said. But those who heard him would think that he was trying, as he usually does, to give hope to people who have almost lost hope, because if people lose hope his task becomes impossible and not just arduous as it is already. Some of those who heard him might also think that the secretary-general was trying to cover up for the inefficacy and weakness of some Arab policies. To these people I would say that he was by no means hinting that he blamed these policies alone for the current deterioration in the region. Moussa is not the type of person to overlook any party's faults and failures. It is no coincidence that Turkey was able to make Washington take certain decisions it would not normally have taken, or that Iran managed to compel the US, Europe and Russia to ease off certain pressures and put off certain hostile actions; or that Putin was able to pressure European leaders to reconsider their notions on power balances in Europe. In all these instances, as is the case with sophisticated conduct of Chinese and Indian diplomacy, these governments knew how to capitalise on their strengths, how to play their cards with expertise and persistence, and how to seize this moment and capitalise on the weaknesses of the current American administration. Surely we can do likewise. This plea to deal with the US like Russia, Iran, Turkey, China, India, Venezuela, Cuba and a growing number of Latin American countries do is not a call for the overthrow of Arab foreign policy systems or for the injection of new blood into the Arab order. It is merely a call for Arab foreign and security policy reform. Perhaps, through such reform, we might be able to follow in the paths of such nations as Taiwan, South Korea, China, India and Russia, which have succeeded in poising themselves to lead their countries and regions to revival. * The writer is director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
