Bush Administration's Lack of a Middle East & Israeli - Palestinian Policy

[stevenleser]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steven_l_060714_bush_administration_.htm

July 14, 2006 at 18:18:12

Bush Administration's Lack of a Middle East & Israeli - Palestinian Policy Proving Disastrous
by Steven Leser

After President Bill Clinton's last minute attempt to forge a permanent peace between the Palestinians and Israelis failed, albeit just barely, George W. Bush and his administration refused to take up the cause. In effect, the Bush administration abdicated the leadership position the United States had assumed in the region under the Clinton administration. The Clinton administration took such a successful leadership role that it had provided the region and the world with perhaps the decade of greatest stability that the Middle East has seen in modern times. This abdication of America's leadership role is difficult to understand from several perspectives. The Middle East has the most important cache of the world's most important natural resource and at the same time it is the most troubled region in the world. The most important and difficult part of this trouble is the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians. The US has been absent in attempting to resolve or mitigate this crisis.

The invasion of Iraq because of non-existent WMD, and the threatening of Iran for a nuclear weapons program it may not have are the only semblance of a Middle East policy the US has had in the last five years under Bush. The vacuum created by the US cutting and running from the Israel-Palestinian peace issue and the further destabilization of the region created by the Iraq war and ensuing insurgency has brought us to where we are now, utter chaos. It is interesting that the Bush administration cut and ran from a Middle East peace policy that was bearing fruit, but now refuses to 'cut and run' from a war that is a failure. That simple comparison speaks volumes about the botched Keystone Kops American policy in the region. We have Israel on the brink of all out war with Lebanon and Syria and Iran poised to potentially become involved, we have failed states in Iraq and Afghanistan full of people who are angry at our involvement in those countries. The Palestinians still do not have a state and rightfully continue to be extremely angry about that and the conditions of their lives.

The Bush Administration's decrepit Middle East non-Policy should be listed in the dictionary as a definition for failure. We're spending 11 million dollars an hour for the never ending failure of a war in Iraq and what has it bought us, more people angry with us, more war, more bloodshed, less stability, less peace and less hope. The neocon wing of the Republican Party that holds sway over the President and GOP in general these days promised that just showing we had the resolve to invade Iraq would scare the rest of the region into 'behaving'. Thanks a lot for that miscalculation guys. The PNAC (People for a New American Century) Think Tank that was the genesis for neocon thought has discredited the term "Think Tank" for generations to come. "You came from a conservative think tank? Great, take the papers you wrote there and use them to wipe your backside because that is all they are worth."

People are always crediting Condi Rice with being so wonderful. I just don't see it. This lady is the United States' top diplomat. She is the one who should be exerting influence over world affairs to ensure that conflagrations such as the one we are now witnessing never come about. She has the backing of the world's most powerful military and economy behind her and a huge diplomatic corps. Where are the fruits of her efforts? This is the person who some people are touting as a Presidential candidate? Condi, Bush, Cheney and most of the rest of the administration should resign if for no other reason than utter incompetence. Maybe then we can get a President and administration that can start putting the pieces in the Middle East back together.

[stevenleser]

1. Bumped

for Sat morning crowd

[teryang]

2. The defense contractors formulate our foreign policy

...with a view to the bottom line for their shareholders. Among them are their representatives, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.

It's all about bluffs, bombs, propaganda, and defense contractor profits. They're "slicing the pig."