Bush in Middle East: Region underwhelmed/ aghast
President Bush's determination to leave Washington tomorrow for a week-long overseas trip looks strangely evocative of Nixon's disaster-plagued last year in office. The lucky hosts of Bush on his out-of-DC wanderings will be Israel (twice), Palestine (very briefly), Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
McClatchy's Warren Strobel notes accurately that
- Bush, who once had grand ambitions to transform the Middle East through democratic reform, is to begin his first extended presidential visit to the region Tuesday with his sights lowered and his ability to influence events fading fast.
Or, did Washington propose these visits, and the Arab rulers involved found they had no way to squirm out of their duties as US satraps in the region?
Somehow, I doubt if it was the former train of events that occurred... Regarding Palestine, Xinhua has this interesting little round-up of the reactions of the various movements to Bush's visit. The reporter there quotes high-level Fateh legislator Abdullah Abdullah as being decidedly lukewarm about the visit-- while the Hamas and Islamic Jihad spokespeople are, quite predictably, scathing in the extreme.
Only Israel's Ehud Olmert-- who is still eager to distract attention from the imminent publication of the (most likely politically problematic) second part of the Winograd Report-- can be expected to be warm toward the idea of hosting this particular guest. For all the other hosting leaders, Bush's presence will most likely be viewed as something between a political embarrassment and the cause of a decidedly unwelcome additional security threat to themselves. Al-Qaeda has, after all, openly called on its supporters in the Muslim world to meet Bush's visit with "bombs and booby-trapped vehicles."
Not quite what the domestically unpopular and already hard-pressed rulers in Egypt and Jordan need at this time...
Regarding the political embarrassment for all these leaders, of having these visits serve to remind their citizens yet again of the these regimes' close ties with George Bush's Washington, the best way to gauge this will be to look for the amount and quality of media coverage that the government-influenced media in these countries give to Bush visit. My prediction is that most of them will try to cut such coverage down to a bare minimum. But let's see...
CNN breaking news reports US NAVY ORDERED TO FIRE ON IRANIANS IN STRAITS OF HORMUZ LAST NIGHT>
Iranians broke off and no shots fired.
And yet it is the Iranians who are portrayed as the crazy, hot-headed ones.
Shirin
Read the Reuters reports.
200 metres out and sending Radio messages about all going up in a big explosion.
10 seconds to impact. At what point do you open fire?
Are they trying to play in the New Hampshire primary too?
ps Shirin
Happy New Year
Good to hear you are alive and well.
Vote Early, Vote often!!
200m means that the US ships were betting they wouldn't be attacked and the captain risked his vessel rather than spark an international incident. It was a game of chicken but the distance meant that the US side had already decided not to blink. CWIS works at 900m, 200m is way too close. 300m is *minimum*. It was up to the Iranians to decide: at that point everyone or no one would die.
Odd war when you have to stare down your opponent by displaying your willingness to die and ask him if he's willing to obey his propensity towards terror martyrdom. Killing is nothing, in the past, the horror has come from Americans being too willing to kill Iranians. Now the ROE apparently involve waiting far too long to see if the target is a suicide terrorist rather than risk destroying an innocent civilian vessel.
If I were the US Navy, I'd regard this as a successful probe and change the ROE to CWIS on "auto" mode. Sprinkle some rice on the water so the fish can have tah digh with the kebab. The Iranians have carried out a bit of a coup here--either the Americans fire first next time, or they wind up with another USS Cole. Win-win unless Iran's propaganda victimhood can be dispelled, and given the Eurabians here, that's unlikely.
The Reuters headline:
"Pentagon says Iranians threatened U.S. ships"
Read the first two words again, and remember which side has been promoting war. Iran says this naval engagement was "ordinary".
Frank,
As usual, there are two sides to the story:
"The U.S. Navy also received a radio transmission that officials believe came from the Iranian boats. The transmission said, 'I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes,' the U.S. military officials told CNN.
"Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Monday the confrontation was 'something normal' and was resolved, suggesting the Iranian boats had not recognized the U.S. vessels. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the Bush administration urges Iranians 'to refrain from such provocative actions that could lead to a dangerous incident in the future.' "
"An 'informed source' from the naval force of the Revolutionary Guards was quoted by Iranian state television as saying: "There were no out of the ordinary contacts between the Guards' naval force and American ships."
"In his account of the incident, the source said three U.S. naval ships were asked by Guards' vessels 'as usual' to identify themselves 'which they did and they continued their path'."
So, who provoked whom? Well, I don't know, but we DO know who has been looking desperately for an excuse to attack whom and has so far been thwarted in that attempt.
And we also know who has an egregious and well-known history of unprovoked aggression.
PS Happy New Year to you, too, Frank.
"Underwhelmed"? Not in Baltimore!
George W. Bush was at the helm of the dominant imperial power when the world of Islam and of the Arabs was in the wind, played upon by ruinous temptations, and when the regimes in the saddle were ducking for cover, and the broad middle classes in the Arab world were in the grip of historical denial of what their radical children had wrought. His was the gift of moral and political clarity. In America and elsewhere, those given reprieve by that clarity, and single-mindedness , have been taking this protection while complaining all the same of his zeal and solitude. In his stoic acceptance of the burdens after 9/11, we were offered a reminder of how nations shelter behind leaders willing to take on great challenges. We scoffed, in polite, jaded company when George W. Bush spoke of the "axis of evil" several years back. The people he now journeys amidst didn't: It is precisely through those categories of good and evil that they describe their world, and their condition. Mr. Bush could not redeem the modern culture of the Arabs, and of Islam, but he held the line when it truly mattered. He gave them a chance to reclaim their world from zealots and enemies of order who would have otherwise run away with it.
(( How about that , O jades of politeness? ))
H,
What do you make of the reports that rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel last night? The attacks on UNIFIL at the same time? What a terrible quagmire-the Lebanese must be engulfed with fear-
It looks very convincingly as if the Strait of Hormuz "incident" was, as I suggested, yet another Bush regime warmongering hoax.
Anybody surprised?