Al-Jumhuria (The Republic), Egypt

Bush’s Trip…a New Failure in the Wake of Annapolis

By D. Lutfi Nassif

Translated By Bethany Kibler

Palestine - Algomhuria - Original Article (Arabic)

American President George Bush finished up his [Middle Eastern] tour last Thursday in the Egyptian city of Sharm Assheq, where he spent less than four hours.  The American President’s visit to Egypt stirred many predictions, resulting both from the arrangement of the visit at the end of his trip, and also from the shortness of the visit – of which little time was put to good use.

Accordingly, Bush’s trip was marked by extreme opposition and popular rejection, as seen in protests from professional organizations and unions – both workers and management – and others organizations from various popular sectors.  Among those protesting were members of the Egyptian House of Commons and prominent writers and artists.  The Egyptian protests were second perhaps only to the protests in Bahrain, which can most like be attributed to the large number of Shiia in Bahrain who sympathize with Iran.

So too, last Saturday’s article about Bush’s trip, published in this newspaper, was entitled “Bush’s trip failed before it began.”  Further, when Bush’s trip – which comprised visits to Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates – came to a close, political and media sources all joined in to declare the trip a failure, despite American efforts to promote it.  Just as the Annapolis conference which had been advocated fervently by Bush, ended…with no results, the same thing happened with respect to George Bush’s latest tour, where there was no talk about optimism, except from Bush and his camp.

The American President’s failure is confirmed by the total inability to achieve any of the goals he set forth, whether it be those related to the Israeli-Palestinian issue or the Iranian issue, for the latter of which Bush strove to arrive at an agreement between Iran’s neighboring Arab countries to form a Sunni pact against Iran.   Bush’s failure came about because of the refusal of all of those countries – led by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and even Kuwait.  These countries unequivocally rejected Bush’s suggestion to boycott Iran and, rather, resolved to maintain good relations with Iran as one of the major countries in the region.

It was at the beginning of the American President’s tour, In Israel, that the obstacle for all Arab countries became clear.  Indeed, Bush revealed on the very first day of his trip his total and brazen alignment with Israel – thus erasing his neutrality – particularly when he announced that the alliance between the United States and Israel was a strategic alliance, including the guarantee of Israel as a Jewish Nation.  This declaration was a provocation from Bush, because Israel is a sectarian religious nation in this part of the world, after racism had all but disappeared and we never believed it would return.

And then came the reaction to this racist provocation – and not only from the Palestinians.  Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abu Ghait announced clearly that neither Egypt not any other Arab nation would recognize a racist Jewish state in the area because that would threaten the rights of the Arab Israelis and the “right to return” of both Christian and Muslim Palestinian refugees.

Moreover, Bush talked about adjusting the 1967 borders to incorporate the settlement bloc in the West Bank into Israel.  This is a matter that Arabs do not accept.  Egypt’s’ reaction to that strange demand was that Egypt and the Arab nations do not recognize the presence of some legitimate settlements and other illegitimate settlements, because all Israeli settlements inside the 1967 borders are illegal.

The American president revealed his lack of familiarity with the Palestinian issue when he proceeded to demand that the Arab leadership take responsibility to pressure the Palestinians and force them to reach a complete settlement with Israel.

The response to this bizarre request came from Saudi Foreign Minister Sa’ud Faisel in a joint press conference with American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, where he asked “what more can we do for Israel than what has already been offered by Arab initiative?”  George Bush positions himself as a defender of Israel and spuriously prejudiced in their favor, which destroys his credibility amongst Arabs and the world.

Isolation of Iran

Bush’s second most important goal was to attempt to form an axis of Arab counties to isolate Iran, taking advantage of the differences between the United Arab Emirates and Iran on matters of religious ideology and the Emirate islands.  In Abu Dhabi, the American President gave an extreme speech, in which he accused Iran of upsetting international stability.  Further, Bush confirmed that Washington was working to bring together its friends from all over the world to confront the so-called Iranian threat before it’s too late.

However, this second demand from Bush received no welcome from Arabs. Egyptian President Hosnay Mubarak confirmed his opposition to relying on a military option to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue.  The United Arab Emirates – who Bush tried to coerce with his speech in their capitol – issued a statement saying that they did not expect for the negative words of the American president to affect the ties between Abu Dhabi and Tehran.  The statement assured that Bush’s comments on Iran did not reflect the United Arab Emirates in any way.

Here we must consider.  How can Bush ask the Arab nations to ally themselves against Iran when , at the same time, the United States is working to improve relations with Iran, by way of both open and closed meetings between the two sides in Iraq and other locations throughout the Middle East?  The United States, throughout the invasion of Iraq, strove to bring together overwrought Shiia elements from outside Iraq to be the core of the government that was formed after the invasion.  These elements still govern Iraq and are helping the invading forces even now.  Indeed, the United States drafted the Shiia militias to help annihilate the Sunni Arabs in Iraq, offering in exchange US permission for the Shiia to clear the Southern region of Iraq of Sunnis and establish a Shiia government under the control of Iran.

The American President is allied with the Iraqi Shiia and negotiates with the Iranians to help get him out of the Iraqi quagmire.  Then he works to establish a Sunni alliance against Iran.  However, his goal was not achieved, thanks to the Arab nation’s perception of the dangers towards which the American Presidents is pushing them.

During his tour of the Gulf States, Bush announced the conclusion of a multi-million dollar deal to sell arms to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.  Bush announced that Washington had agreed to sell “JDEM” (or GDEM) “Smart” bombs to Saudi Arabia.  However, after the announcement, Israel raised objections to the deal.  Bush’s immediate reaction was to compensate Israel by giving them even more modern weapons which are able to efficiently down the “Smart” bomb.  This was to ensure Israeli military supremacy over the Arab nations, a strategy that the United States hopes to maintain in perpetuity.

Yes – The Arab rulers could use diplomacy to temporarily object to the American President’s demands, and even that under Arab popular pressure to cut all ties with the United States.  However, the American President’s reception in the Arab nations was extremely warm – including sword-dancing with Bush and the Arab leaders – provoking the ire of the Arab masses in all countries.  This is especially true in that the celebrations and dancing took places while, at the same time, the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza were being killed by the Israelis, who paid no mind to the American President’s circumstances in the area, proving that there is American-Israeli collusion over the defenseless Palestinian people.

One of the issues that provoked scorn for the American President and Secretary of State was the issue of arms smuggling from Egypt to Gaza and likewise the accusation that Egypt had been complicit in it.  Naturally, Egypt dismissed these claims as false and I believe Egypt to be the trustworthy source in this matter.  However, we should ask ourselves – How can the United States object to the trickle of a few rifles across the long Egyptian border to Palestinian resistance fighters, at the same time as the American president announced a multi-million dollar deal to send rockets and tanks and smart bombs to Israel, with no consideration for the killing of the Palestinian people?

And despite Egypt’s assurance of the State’s lack of involvement in any leaking of weapons to the Palestinians, the surveillance of the long border is considered to be an impossible feat, due to the lack of Egyptian forces, which is in turn a result of the Camp David Accords…still, despite this, the United States takes a cold stance towards Egypt, as evidenced by Bush’s visiting Egypt at the very end of his trip and spending just four hours in the country.

We, the public, are not honored by Bush’s arrival.  This was made clear in the demonstrations and popular protests in all parts of Egypt which intended to show the Egyptian government our opinion of the American President who spent just four hours in Sharm Assheq, far from the rest of Egypt. 

We don’t care what the United States is saying about Egypt’s shrinking role in the region.  We know that the wider world knows Egypt’s capabilities and power both in the Arab region and the world…For indeed, Egypt had to most to offer the United States during the war to liberate Kuwait and tried to help the United States by counseling them not to get entangled in the Iraqi morass.

Then the United States believed itself to be capable to making it up to us.  This is confirmed in an American citation where the vice president of the research division of the Washington Institute for Middle Eastern policy, Patrick Kelly (Wasuuf), stated that withholding part of the relief from Egypt was not worthwhile because Egypt had many other ways to gather together foreign currencies, largely because investors from the Gulf States are using oil returns from the gas hike to buy real estate and banks.

And so we are not happy about the American President’s visit to Egypt, which maybe he felt, for he shortened his visit at Sharm Assheq…and we thank him for that, as long as he does not soil our pure land after he soiled his hands with the blood of thousands of innocents in Iraq and in Palestine and in Afghanistan.

CLICK HERE FOR ARABIC VERSION