With the public’s attention turned inward on the looming South Carolina and Nevada primaries, the Bush administration has trained its eye toward foreign policy. In a six-nation tour covering Kuwait, Israel, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt over the course of the week, President Bush has reached some startling conclusions.
CNNpolitics.com reported that after Bush spoke with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah on Monday night, he commented that, “Oil prices are very high, which is tough on our economy.” It’s a good thing we established that to the ruler of one of the most influential nations in the OPEC cartel.
Although sources like the BBC and The New York Times reported the tour’s stated purpose as furthering peace talks between Israel and Palestine, it doesn’t look like much progress has been made in that direction.
“The Israeli-Palestinian dialogue has been the historic target of a president at the end of his administration,” David Denker (SFS ’10), co-president of the Israeli Alliance, said. “It’s the last hurrah—‘Let’s try to make peace in the Middle East.’”
Denker recently returned from Jerusalem, where he watched the city make preparations for Bush’s first visit to Israel.
“It seemed people were more angry about Bush’s visit than excited,” Denker said. “Israelis are very realistic—they also don’t think a peace settlement is achievable anywhere in the near future.”
Despite their differences, students who support Israeli and Palestinian causes seem to agree that a trip to Israel at the twilight of Bush’s tenure will not solve anything.
“Bush’s visit to the Middle East was a positive step, but unfortunately seven years too late,” Hammad Hammad (SFS ’08), a member of the executive board of Students for Justice in Palestine, said. “Peace does not happen through hollow words.”
Instead, the president’s goal to reinvigorate discussion—begun at a November 2007 peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland—has fallen flat in favor of promoting anti-Iranian sentiment and furthering U.S. interests.
Discussion of the rising price of oil, coupled with the administration’s announcement on Tuesday that it plans to sell weapon technology worth close to $120 million to the Saudi government, has placed focus on the Bush administration’s campaign against the rising power of Iran in the region.
The last eight years have been a regression from the positive steps toward cooperation taken in the region during the Clinton administration, according to Fara Mohammadi (SFS ’08), chair of the Board of Directors of the Iran Cultural Society, who described the relationship between the U.S. and Iran during the Clinton administration as “a kind of deténte.”
So what has this trip accomplished? Very little. As reports of daily bombings in the Gaza Strip run adjacent to reports of Bush’s lavish reception at King Abdullah’s aqua-therapied horse farm on Tuesday, it appears that restoring U.S. credibility in the eyes of Israelis and Palestinians alike will have to begin with the next administration.
