Bush Steers Ship Of State Deeper Into Middle East Waters

by Jim Lobe

(IPS) WASHINGTON -- Clearly buoyed by Sunday's election in Iraq, a confident George W. Bush told the nation that the Middle East will dominate U.S. foreign policy during his second term as president, just as his proposals to privatize the 70-year-old U.S. social security system will be his top priority at home.

In a nearly hour-long State of the Union address, the president generally eschewed the more strident rhetoric he has used in the past, most notoriously in his "axis-of-evil" speech of 2002. At the same time, he made clear that he has no intention of deviating one iota from his ambitions to transform the region, even if that should bring him into confrontation with Syria and Iran, in particular.

In one of his very few significant nods to Washington's European allies, Bush stressed that he was committed to achieving a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, arguing that peace was now "within reach" and calling on Congress to approve the unexpectedly large sum of $350 million for the Palestine National Authority.

Nor, in the wake of Sunday's better-than-expected balloting in Iraq, did he shy from restating his more grandiose ambitions there, explicitly rejecting growing pressure from within his own Republican Party, as well as Democrats, to offer the country a persuasive "exit strategy" short, if necessary, of achieving a democratic government in Baghdad.

"We are in Iraq to achieve a result: a country that is democratic, representative of all its people, at peace with its neighbors, and able to defend itself," he said. "And when that result is achieved, our men and women serving in Iraq will return home with the honour they have earned."

"And not before," exclaimed an exuberant David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter and prominent neo-conservative at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), in the National Review Online. Like other hawks, Frum pronounced himself most pleased with both the speech ("dazzling") and the news that fellow-neo-con Elliott Abrams has just been promoted to become a deputy national security adviser in charge of democracy-promotion, as well as Middle East policy.

Particularly notable, in many ways, was what Bush omitted from the speech, which is normally an occasion for delivering a broad panorama of what a president considers important in the world and what he hopes to accomplish.

Some analysts were struck by the gap between the rhetorical importance the administration has placed on strengthening tattered ties with Europe -- as underscored by both Condoleezza Rice's maiden voyage as secretary of state there this week and Bush's trip later in the month -- and his silence about issues, apart from the Middle East, on which European leaders feel most strongly.

These include slowing global warming, fighting poverty -- the two top priorities for Bush's closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- and strengthening the United Nations.

"Many policy concerns that are close to the heart of Europeans received no mention whatsoever," said Charles Kupchan, a foreign-policy analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "The End of the American Era."

"They would justifiably come away from this speech believing that their worldview and Bush's worldview overlap only at the margins."

Indeed, the only time the UN, the European Union (EU) and even NATO came up by name in the speech was in relation to their help in Afghanistan. Even more remarkable was Bush's failure to cite by name allies that are contributing troops or other assistance to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, as he did in last year's address.

Lest any observers believe that a chastened Bush has become more respectful of permanent alliances, he made clear that he still preferred a more ad hoc approach. "In the next four years," he said, "my administration will continue to build the coalitions that will defeat the dangers of our time."

He did mention Washington's "European allies" in one other context, insisting that he is "working with" them to persuade Iran to abandon its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons and "end its support for terror."

But he then suggested that contrary to the Europeans' belief that Washington should directly engage Iran in ongoing negotiations, he would do nothing that could be seen as legitimising the "regime" in Tehran.

Accusing it of remaining "the world's primary state sponsor of terror (and) pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve," Bush addressed the latter in a way clearly designed to show contempt for the government.

"And to the Iranian people," I say tonight," he said, "As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you."

"This is scary stuff," noted Stephen Clemons, a foreign-policy specialist at the New America Foundation who also stressed the speech's threatening language about Syria. "I don't think we have the foggiest idea how we're really going to take Iran on at this point."

But if Europeans felt slighted by Bush's tour d'horizon, most of the rest of the world, particularly Africa and Latin America, could be excused for feeling invisible, a perception that is becoming increasingly worrisome for many policy specialists here.

Despite a steadily downward spiral in relations with Venezuela, growing U.S. intervention in Colombia's civil war, rising instability elsewhere in the Andes, and an almost total lack of progress in achieving a hemispheric trade accord, Bush had nothing at all to say about the continent, except a brief appeal on behalf of a stalled guest-worker program.

The total omission of Africa was even more striking in light of the fact that his emergency AIDS program for the region was a central feature of his State of the Union address just two years ago and that his administration had denounced mass killings over the past year in Darfur as a "genocide" just four months ago.

"On the 60th anniversary of the Holocaust and after the 10th year commemoration of the genocide in Rwanda, when senior U.S. government officials are all saying 'never again,' the president's silence on Darfur is completely unacceptable," said Salih Booker, director of Africa Action. "The Bush administration's silence last night speaks volumes about its indifference to Africa."

Bush was also silent on Russia and China, a silence Clemons attributed to Bush's desire "not to have them defined as major priorities at this time."

Significantly, Bush barely mentioned North Korea, which he had previously identified with Iran and Iraq as a charter member of the "axis of evil," noting only that Washington was "working closely with the governments in Asia to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions."

Two U.S. lawmakers who recently visited Pyongyang had warned that North Korean leaders were unlikely to return to the "Six-Party Talks" if Bush harshly denounced the Communist state as he has in the past, and, remarkably, the White House appears to have heeded the warning, signaling, perhaps, a greater desire to engage than in the past or that Iran and the Middle East were higher priorities in any case.