The Middle East: The Five Dots Bush Needs to Connect

Personal note: Kerry and the congressional democrats need to connect these too.

Dot 2. President Bush continues to exhort the Arabs to play a bigger role in Iraq, despite opposition to this war by virtually every Middle Eastern country. Does the Sharon deal make their participation more or less likely?

Dot 3. Bush presses on with his Greater Middle East Initiative, a plan to “bring democracy” to the autocracies and dictatorships of the neighborhood. The Arab Middle East has roundly rejected the Bush initiative as a neocolonial effort to impose reforms externally. They reasonably complain that they were never consulted. Is the Sharon decision likely to make them more receptive?

Dot 4. In Bush’s “road map” for Israeli-Palestinian peace, such issues as Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and Palestinians’ “right of return” were supposed to be negotiated by the two parties, with the US as “honest broker”... US displeasure with Israeli settlements has been a staple of American policy for more than 20 years, though the administration is widely perceived abroad to favor Israel over the Palestinians. With a single action, Bush has confirmed that perception and given away two of the Palestinians’ major bargaining chips.

Dot 5. The US is fighting a global war against terrorists. This is a war that cannot be won by the US acting alone. It needs help, lots of help. And much of this help has by definition to come from the countries that have spawned this generation of jihadists in the first place. Most of these countries are in the Middle East. Did the Bush administration consider the impact of its Sharon deal on America’s top priority?......


http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=44223&d=3&m=5&y=2004