Bush Tour Diminished by Hezbollah Show of Force
WASHINGTON - While this week’s trip by President George W. Bush to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt was never conceived as a triumphant “victory lap” around the region, the swift rout of U.S.-backed forces by Lebanon’s Hezbollah Friday has provided yet another vivid illustration of the rapid decline in Washington’s influence in the Middle East during his tenure.
The events in Lebanon will no doubt cast a long shadow over Bush’s tour, which begins Tuesday. After all, it was only three years ago that he hailed the “Cedar Revolution” there as vindication of the kind of democratic transformation of the region that he insisted the invasion of Iraq was designed to launch.
Three years and a brief war between Israel and Hezbollah later, the Iranian- and Syrian-backed group appears more powerful and entrenched than ever, just as its Sunni Islamist ally in the Palestinian Territories (PT), Hamas, remains solidly in control of Gaza and grows in popularity in the West Bank in major part due to the apparent lack of progress in peace talks — formally initiated by Bush himself at Annapolis last November — between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Israeli government.
“The politics on the ground are absolutely miserable,” Jon Alterman, a Middle East specialist at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) here, told the New York Times Sunday. “It’s hard to remember a less auspicious time to pursue Arab-Israeli peacemaking than right now. U.S. power and influence are at low ebb in the region,” he added.
Bush will travel to Israel Tuesday to help it celebrate the 60th anniversary of its founding and then fly on to Saudi Arabia, presumably to appeal — as he did in January when he last traveled to the region — for a major increase in oil production to bring some relief to U.S. (and Republican candidates), and then to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where he will address the World Economic Forum and meet with a collection of Sunni Arab leaders, including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah.
Apart from Israel, to which Bush has been by far the most indulgent president in the Jewish state’s history, he is likely to get his warmest — if most anxious — reception when he meets with the assembled Sunni leaders, many of whom are as concerned about Shi’a Hezbollah’s show of force as is Israel.
Like Bush himself, not to mention Israel, they see Hezbollah’s victory as another in a series of advances by Iran in its effort to shift the balance of power in the Gulf and the wider region against Washington and its allies there. It is an impression that Bush, somewhat ironically, will be eager to reinforce, if only to revive the dying embers of his hopes for a de facto U.S.-Sunni Arab-Israeli coalition against Tehran, even without a viable Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
“To me, it’s the single biggest threat to peace in the Middle East, the Iranian regime,” he told an interviewer from Israel’s TV Channel 10, according to a partial transcript released Monday. “Their funding of Hezbollah — look what’s happening in Lebanon now, a young democracy trying to survive… (I)t’s in Israel interest that the Lebanese democracy survives. You need to be concerned about Iran, and you are concerned about Iran and so are we.”
Indeed, five years after the White House declared “Mission Accomplished” on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, virtually all analysts here agree that almost everything Bush has done in the region — from invading Iraq and ousting Saddam Hussein and then rejecting an Iranian offer to negotiate a settlement on all outstanding issues; to pressing for the total isolation of Hamas after it won (U.S.-backed) democratic elections in the Palestinian Territories (PT) and egging on the Israelis in their attack on Lebanon and Hezbollah in 2006 — has undermined U.S. standing and influence, even as it enhanced Tehran’s.
Even in Iraq, recent U.S. attacks on Muqtada al Sadr’s “Mahdi Army”, particularly in Baghdad’s Sadr City, appear to have bolstered the government factions with the closest and most-longstanding ties to Iran — the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) and its Badr Organisation, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Da’wa party.
The fact that Tehran itself played a key role in brokering the truces between Sadr and the government in both Basra last month and in Sadr City last weekend underlines the degree to which Iran is effectively challenging Washington in what neo-conservative hawk Reuel Marc Gerecht of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) admits “is the only arena (in the region) where the administration is capable of moving effectively against Tehran.”
And while there is little evidence that Washington played any role in pushing the Lebanese cabinet to order the dismantling of Hezbollah’s communications network at Beirut’s airport — the act that provoked Friday’s offensive — its staunch support for the “March 14″ Coalition; its deployment of a U.S. naval destroyer off Lebanon’s coast as the political crisis in Beirut intensified in March; its supply of some 400 million dollars in military aid and training to the Lebanese army and security forces (which stayed out of the fighting); and its covert backing (with Saudi Arabia and Jordan) of Sunni militias, in some cases disguised as private-security firms, intended to counter Hezbollah no doubt contributed to a grave miscalculation by the government.
“These Sunni militiamen proved a complete failure, and America’s proxies in Lebanon barely put up a fight despite their strident anti-Shiite rhetoric,” noted Nir Rosen, a regional expert at the New America Foundation who described Hezbollah’s offensive as “the death throes of the Bush plan for the ‘New Middle East’.”
“Now it is clear that Beirut is firmly in the hands of Hezbollah, and nothing the Americans can do will dislodge or weaken this popular movement, just as they cannot weaken the Sadrists in Iraq or Hamas in Gaza,” he said.
Still, some observers believe Hezbollah’s victory may yet serve the administration’s ends, if only by reminding the Sunni leaders with whom Bush meets later in the week that, in Gerecht’s words again, “Tehran is on a roll”, and they need the U.S. and even Israel to contain it and roll back its influence.
Indeed, some analysts believe the weekend’s events may add to the gradually growing clamour by hawks in and outside the administration to take military action — if only, for now, limited strikes on weapons factories and training sites inside Iran allegedly used by the Revolutionary Guard to train “terrorists” in Iraq, Lebanon, and the PT — to “put Iran in its place”.
“The next couple of days may be critical,” said one former senior Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer with expertise on the region, who added that any decision to “strike will actually motivated by an irresistible urge, stemming from pure frustration over continuing American impotence throughout the region, just to ‘do something’…even though the actual positive gain in this case would be minimal, while the downside risks are enormous.”
Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy, and particularly the neo-conservative influence in the Bush administration, can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/.
© 2008 Inter Press Service
run bush outta the middle east and the u. s. as well. maybe elba would be a good place for him!
“And while there is little evidence that Washington played any role in pushing the Lebanese cabinet to order the dismantling of Hezbollah’s communications network at Beirut’s airport…”
I think that the writer is confusing two actions attempted by the Beirut government 1) ousting a resistance-friendly security chief at the Beirut airport, and 2) shutting down a telecommunications network that Hizbullah operates throughout the country (but has no special connection with the airport that I am aware of). Both of these actions were recently rolled back by the army as a way for the government to back down in the face of Hizbullah’s show of strength in the capital, while saving face by not directly doing it themselves.
As progressives, we will always be put to greater scrutiny when it comes to getting basic facts right (like it or not, it doesn’t matter, it’s just true), so we have to demand that of ourselves. Otherwise, good piece, quite insightful. The failures of the Bush administration’s policies in the middle east, while no surprise, are almost staggering in their magnitude. Sometimes I wonder how he manages to do it.
i believe the words you are looking for are (once again): MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
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heckuvajob
>Sometimes I wonder how he manages to do it.<
Perhaps he’s an Iranian agent. I mean really, could they have hoped for anything better than this? Our military misadventures in the region drive up the price of oil, and strengthen Tehran’s relationship with China and other oil-seeking countries while undermining the U.S. economy. Plus we knocked off their greatest enemy, Saddam, while allowing their allies to come to power in Iraq. And a non-nuclear attack on Iran would just buttress the regime there while further destabilizing oil markets, improving Iran’s export position in the long run. A nuclear attack would turn the opinion of the world against us while creating an outpouring of sympathy for Iran. So from their perspective Bush can do no wrong. They should give him a medal or something.
Bush doesn’t want peace in the region. He wants instability, confusion, factional fighting. It gives him justification for his actions, despite their seeming failure.
He’s like the brat kid in the neighborhood who keeps poking at the hornets nest. He perversely gets his kicks out of all the havoc.
These battles go beyond the Saudi/Iranian proxies or the Christian/Muslim dichotomies or other geopolitical categories. They are about human beings trying to live their lives. For an attempt to transcend these simplifications in an a Beruit setting, see my “Arabia and the American Dream” at
http://phillipbannowsky.com/Arabia.htm
rebelnow: Yes, the neocon goal for the Middle East was to destabilize it in order to remake it as the New Middle East whose “birth pangs” Condi Rice said we were watching as Israel pounded Beirut to rubble in 2006.
Now, the nuts in the White House and their tame generals in Iraq are demonizing Iran — which does NOT have a nuclear weapons program — in hopes of “justifying” an invasion. Israel hopes for an attack on Iran while Bush is in office, fearing that the next president may not buy into the current story. McCain’s advisor John Hagee says the US and Israel must together invade/attack Iran so that “God’s plan for Israel and the West” may be fulfilled. McCain sings, “Bomb bomb bomb Iran.” Hillary Clinton says she would “obliterate” Iran if they attacked Israel with a nuclear weapon, thus showing she believes the propaganda. Obama doesn’t seem to hold Iran in high esteem (too much propaganda from both the White House and AIPAC) but would, in that situation, take a more thoughtful look at the situation before taking any action. (Vote Obama, everyone.)
The IAEA says Iran has NO nuclear weapons program. Dick Cheney says but … but … but they MIGHT restart the one they stopped three years ago, so we have to make sure they can’t do that. This is insanity of the highest order and incredibly stupid besides.
It all contributes to the ongoing mystery. Is Bush a genius (albeit an evil one) whose dumbshit act is part of a complex plan to keep the world under our thumb? Maybe future historians will laud his cleverness at getting all the worlds resources for the American people (may God bless us forever).
Or is he just a dumbshit.
The writer seems to be terribly worried about the DECLINING INFLUENCE of the US in the MiddleEast, and least bothered about the NATURE OF THE US INFLUENCE in this region. He seems to be more worried about the consequences (on American economy and life) of the declining influence of the US in the MiddleEast than the mass human wreckage caused by the US and its allies everywhere in this region. The US and the Western economic neoliberalism and the shock doctrine of deconstruction and chaos can be seen in this region. The record of predatory capitalism and heartless, absolute greed is consistent. The capacity to control natural resources in the MiddleEast is enhanced by spreading terror, uprooting people, destroying families, and sowing distrust and hatred (”boil, oil, bomb”). This may be seen in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan…. The armed conflicts in countries cause political chaos, destroy the infrastructure and make a huge dent on their economies, which make them vulnerable. This, in turn, provides an easy access for the US and the European transnational companies to their markets and natural resources.The interconnectedness between wars/civil wars and control of markets and natural resources is aptly expressed by the former US General Smedley Butler, who participated in many wars in the Central and the South America: “I was an errand boy for Wall Street.”
what a dream come true if some Hezbollah sniper picked him off…….
pcsmith said: Is Bush a genius… Or is he just a dumbshit
I suspect that it’s the latter. Bush is just a figurehead… someone to swagger around with that cocky little smirk of his, giving speeches and threatening nations. I bet that Bush doesn’t know/understand half of what he is saying. Real power lies with the people behind the scenes, and mostly with Cheney.
liberal with an attitude said: what a dream come true if some Hezbollah sniper picked him off…….
Yeah, for Cheney… Best thing that could ever happen to him would be Bush getting assassinated… especially if it was overseas and by an Arab. Think about it… That would not only make Cheney officially president, it would give him the excuse to blame it on Iran/Syria and to launch the attack he’s wanted. The American people would be ‘appalled’ at their president being shot by some Arab and would cry out for blood. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bush was shot by a Mossad sniper and pinned on some Arab patsy.
An astute observation deepa. Modern war is ALWAYS about profit for the few, sacrifice by the many.
If Bush got killed by a sniper, as much as he deserves far worse, more bombs will fall. I’d much rather see him arrested in Europe.
deepa, the author is merely discussing the situation from the point of view of the Bush adminstration’s goals versus the actual outcome of its policies. There are plenty of people out there who would never be persuaded (at least, not decisively) to support anti-war politics based purely on a human rights argument, but could well be persuaded to from the point of view that Bush’s policies are self-defeating (which they are). That might not seem like the _right_ reason to some of us to support anti-war politics, but the reality of life is that people are just different from one another and we need hard work and smart politics if we are going to reach out to people who don’t _already_ think the way we do and avert global disaster in the coming decades. If you learn to look at politics from multiple points of view, you’ll find that your ability to influence others increases. And, in all honesty, emotional arguments are effective on almost no one, unless they already agree with you (in which case there’s nothing to gain anyways).
In short, you can’t expect everything to written from the point of view of an anti-war progressive, nor would it necessarily be helpful to our cause if it were so.
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President Bush is a failure and an idiot.
The Iranian backed Hezbollah punished the U.S backed Lebanonese Military last week.
The Shia in Iraq want the U.S. Invaders out, and an anti-West nationalist government installed, a satilite of Iran.
Syria and Egypt are ready to join hands in a Pan Islamic Federation with Iran and the Gulf states.
The United States is broken !!!!!!!!!!
Israel’s dream of a 2nd powerful Kingdom of David is a lost dream. Now all of Israels worst nightmares are coming into reality…..A United Islamic Federation
Bush is bust !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Think a little. Have you ever known a public figure like G W Bush? He has spoken plenty. But he never says anything. His mouth moves. Sounds come forth. But in all this, there is nothing. The man has zero substance, no spine, no backbone, like those bags of potato chips puffed up with air and an ounce and a half of greasy potatoes sliced very thin.
One further point: after all these wars and attempted coups (especially the attempted ousting of Hamas from Gaza, which obviously has nothing to do with any corporation either way) have backfired on the Bush administration, the whole “it’s all about oil” or “sowing chaos to allow the transnational corporations to step in and make money” arguments are starting to get a little silly. These arguments are kind of like the geocentric universe models that got more and more complicated through the centuries in a desperate attempt to hold on to the idea that the earth was at the center of the universe.
The fact is that they could make money just as easily by going the other way. The Arabs have a massive population in comparison to Israel’s and far more resources (not just oil but land and water), so that they could make as much money if they just sold weapons to the Arabs and cut deals with them for the corporations (they do this to some extent, but they could go much further if the alliance with Israel didn’t inflame opinion against them so heavily). In fact, when Cheney was on the board of Halliburton he was exactly for that policy: he was for dropping the sanctions against Iraq, and cutting a deal with their regime so that Halliburton could go in and make a shitload of money in a stable Iraq. When he become a politician and had an army to push around, suddenly the other choice became more interesting.
So yes, they do make a bunch of money of the present situation. However, they would make a bunch of money if they did the exact opposite. Why? Because they already have a shitload of money… and in a capitalist world, what makes you money is having money. War, peace, who gives a fuck.
I propose a more simple theory for why all this stuff is going on: Bush and the neo-conservatives are a bunch of self-idolizers who don’t understand the world very well. Like most self-centered people that see something that is different from themselves and which they don’t understand, they attempt to control it. But because they don’t understand it well, they aren’t very good at it. Sure, they make some money doing it, but they would make money anyways.
It may not sound as sexy, but it’s a much better explanation for what’s going on.
Bush tour diminished?! It’s hard to imagine how anything about Bush’s stature could get much smaller, expecially in the Middle East. But I suppose even sub-microscopic dust motes require our attention so long as they command military forces.
Damn, something is in the air…as I read this piece I had the thought that Bush should watch his back…then all this talk about the hideous “A” word.
Save George Bush’s life: Impeach Now! Quick!
lol @ puck twain
“YANGON, Myanmar - Police barred foreign aid workers from reaching cyclone survivors in hard-hit areas Tuesday, while emergency food shipments backed up at the main airport for Myanmar’s biggest city.”
I think it would be better to ship the Burma aid to Palestine and Iraq where the sadistic occupiers have been starving the populations for years.
As much as I despise the man, I do not like to hear suggestions of killing Bush (or Cheney for that matter). I have been of the firm belief that the only thing that has kept them both alive thus far, however, is that no one has come up with a means of “taking them both out” simiultaneously.
I would settle for Bush just being kidnapped by Hamas, Hezbolallah or whoever wants to and see who the hell would want to pay a ransom to set him free.
And if he’s got Israel scheduled on his tour, why didn’t he take that turncoat Lieberman with him?. I’m sure they could watch “Exodus” as the in-flight movie and share a bottle of Manischewitz
Meanwhile, you’ve got John McCain going throw his record collection, looking for the Beach Boys’ “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran”.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s all a guessing game; is the Bush/Cheney administration going to get us involved in a war with Iran before January 2009 or are they going to let McCain use it to kickstart his administration?
I’ll bet there are betting pools going on right now inside the “beltway”.
I’m glad Common Dreams doesn’t have too many articles of an international nature daily; this is wearing me out.
As much as I despise the man, I do not like to hear suggestions of killing Bush (or Cheney for that matter). I have been of the firm belief that the only thing that has kept them both alive thus far, however, is that no one has come up with a means of “taking them both out” simiultaneously.
I would settle for Bush just being kidnapped by Hamas, Hezbolallah or whoever wants to and see who the hell would want to pay a ransom to set him free.
And if he’s got Israel scheduled on his tour, why didn’t he take that turncoat Lieberman with him?. I’m sure they could watch “Exodus” as the in-flight movie and share a bottle of Manischewitz
Meanwhile, you’ve got John McCain going throw his record collection, looking for the Beach Boys’ “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran”.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s all a guessing game; is the Bush/Cheney administration going to get us involved in a war with Iran before January 2009 or are they going to let McCain use it to kickstart his administration?
I’ll bet there are betting pools going on right now inside the “beltway”.
I’m glad Common Dreams doesn’t have too many articles of an international nature daily; this is wearing me out.
The difference between what I wrote and that of the writer is the perspective. The writer has used the age-old colonial and imperial perspective, where the “reality” is interpreted from the VICTIMIZERS’ point of view. Whereas I have looked at the REALITY IN THE MIDDLEEAST from the VICTIMS’ POINT OF VIEW. This is how I understand being a progressive.
Bush’s MiddleEast policy is not an aberration. He is following a tradition of predatory MiddleEast policies of the US.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_chris_ri_080513_bring_bush_to_justic.htm
Yale teaches that the fastest way to change society is by war! Yale’s Skull and Bone, a tratorious college sect who uses secrecy to hide their ambition to inflict their secret desires to force America to fight thier wars. It was the rouge element’s in Skull and Bones, with their secret deal’s with the Nazies to conqure Europe and to bring facism to America. The same people who tried to kill FDR are the same people who killed JFK. The CIA used the Nazi death squads and snipers whom they brought to America; then to Dallas, because of their lost of Cuba they kill JFK. Yales Skull and Bones where hiding Nazies in Cuba. The CIA was using Cuba to launder the stolen money from WW2. For those American General’s who supported Hitler before the war. CIA front companies were making a fortune in Cuba on nickle and cobalt by price gouging the American people in over price nickel and by screwing the people of Cuba by cheating on their taxes in Cuba. One of those companies was Freeport Sulfur Companies and Moa Bay Mining Companies which are CIA front companies. Many in the CIA would have gone to jail!
Yale teaches that the fastest way to change society is by war! Yale’s Skull and Bone, a tratorious college sect who uses secrecy to hide their ambition to inflict their secret desires to force America to fight thier wars. It was the rouge element’s in Skull and Bones, with their secret deal’s with the Nazies to conqure Europe and to bring facism to America. The same people who tried to kill FDR are the same people who killed JFK. The CIA used the Nazi death squads and snipers whom they brought to America; then to Dallas, because of their lost of Cuba they kill JFK. Yales Skull and Bones where hiding Nazies in Cuba. The CIA was using Cuba to launder the stolen money from WW2. For those American General’s who supported Hitler before the war. CIA front companies were making a fortune in Cuba on nickle and cobalt by price gouging the American people in over price nickel and by screwing the people of Cuba by cheating on their taxes in Cuba. One of those companies was Freeport Sulfur Companies and Moa Bay Mining Companies which are CIA front companies. Many in the CIA would have gone to jail!
You’re right. The Iranians should give George Bush a medal and even fund his fake library at SMU. Simply because-by knowing nothing about military strategy, foreign policy, and diplomacy, he played right into their hands. He’s an amatuer. He truly has been an embrassment for the Bush family from day one. I spoke with a store clerk who knows George Bush from his “partying” days in Midland, Texas. She and her husband lived there too. I can tell you, this man has never truly recovered from those days. He needs to go back and re-do the twelve steps.
http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html
SRD
Great Discussion of the nitty gritty here.
I think both Deepa and Galadriel are correct but if the MIC was just out to make money without any Ideology behind it, they could have agreed with General Butler and closed down Skull and Bones way before crazy little George was born.
This historical exploitation and divide and conquer is ingrained into the tradition and DNA of the majority of the Power Elite.
I do see some possible hope for a slow change for the better and like Galadriel suggests it will come from both our push along with the self interest of the big boys to survive what they have done to the world with our sometimes stupid help.
GWB “It is in Israel’s interest that the Lebanese democracy survives”
I am not a Middle East expert, and perhaps am oversimplifying this, but was it no long ago when Israel bombed Lebanon? So how could Israel be interested in Lebanese democracy when at any minute, the Israeli military will bomb Beirut?
Yet again another disillusion from the Bush junta.
Claudis, because they meant the non-hezbollah part of Beirut and Lebanon generally, which they did not bomb, ot at least not bomb as much. Lebanon is not a democracy, its a series of fortified political/military parties, that get a certain share of popular support.
You’ll never read it on commondreams, but there were those in Lebanon that supported israels war and want them to come back.
It is cute how so many people can sit in their offices and their homes and criticize the US policies. We here in america live better and more extravegant than most of the world and while i share many poeples sentiments about the blunders of the Bush administration i also love the american life style because like you all i have a computer, fresh water and plenty of food. Hope everyone here sees this for what it is our desire to maintain a certain standard of living.