December 21, 2007

Vision & Will

What has long been readily transparent to the rest of the world is now supposedly becoming apparent in the White House.
According to the New York Times of November 27, President Bush “seems to have accepted that the Palestinian cause is at the root of Islamic mistrust of the United States”. This is noteworthy when juxtaposed against the intellectual corruption which usually infests discussions surrounding the Middle East in Washington. 
To cite the Los Angeles Times editorial of November 28, Bush has “inched closer to the articulation of what most Western and Middle Eastern leaders understood well before 9/11: that there can be no meaningful reconciliation between Islamists and the West, no end to terror, without a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
But this is Bush’s final year as President. And it could be a case of too little, too late, despite having convened a 50-nation international Middle East summit conference in Annapolis, Maryland, which also included Pakistan. Excluded from this conference, however, were both Hamas and Iran. Excluded, too, was any movement on the core issues of Jerusalem, fixing of borders, illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian territories, and the return of Palestinian refugees. 
Reverting to the Los Angeles Times of Nov 27, “the truth is that as a result of Bush’s unwavering Zionism, he is deeply admired and trusted by most Israelis.” But this is precisely why Bush is not respected in much of the Muslim world. Simply put, Bush wants the Muslim world to change its Mideast posture without the US changing its own. 
In an embarrassing U-turn, the Bush Administration withdrew a United Nations Security Council Resolution it had submitted a day earlier endorsing the Annapolis process, because Israel objected to direct involvement of the United Nations on the Palestinian-Israeli issue. US deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff informed the Security Council that the US was withdrawing the Annapolis resolution from consideration less than 24 hours after US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad had introduced it. This episode is a chastening message for those who pin their hopes on the US to break through the Middle East impasse.
Another major embarrassment for the Bush Administration is the conclusion of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) reflecting the consensus view of 16 intelligence agencies that Iran is not pursuing the nuclear weaponry route. This is a big blow for Bush’s policy of confrontation with Tehran. Also, it reveals that there is a significant constituency within the US establishment which is against opening an additional new front in the Muslim World. 
While many in Washington wax eloquent on the ‘global war on terror’, the terror within is being overlooked. On December 5, at Omaha, Nebraska, a lone gunman armed with a rifle went on a shooting rampage in a mall busy with Christmas shoppers, killing 8 people. This follows a spate of typically random killings in the US, like the one on April 16, 2007, at Virginia Tech University, where 32 students and staff were massacred in the worst campus shooting in US history. 
Meanwhile, the race for the 2008 US Presidency continues to gain momentum. Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, who continues to dine on 9/11 and has been in the forefront of raising alarm about ‘Islamic terrorism’, has now been discovered milking the Muslim world for private business gain, specifically, in Qatar. Giuliani’s defense: he was protecting a ‘moderate’ regime from Muslim ‘extremists’. 
The Mideast Summit in Annapolis showcased a glittering galaxy of luminaries. There was plenty of empty talk of peace. But there was little solid evidence of vision and will.