In a Region Known for Its Hospitality, Gulf Editors Take Off the Gloves for Bush Visit

By Delinda C. Hanley


	A demonstrator holds a sign in support of the Palestinians during a Jan. 12 protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Manama, Bahrain on the day of President George W. Bush’s arrival. (AFP photo/Adam Jan).

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. Bush began his last year in office the way he should have spent his first: traveling to the Middle East to hear what this key region has to say. After spending two days in Israel and the West Bank without making major progress toward peace—and as Israel resumed its military attacks on the West Bank and Gaza Strip in earnest—the president headed for the Gulf. Residents in every city on his itinerary, from Ramallah to Riyadh, had to contend with virtual curfews, as schools and businesses closed amid tight security.

The president’s reception in Kuwait, on Jan. 11, was quite different from his father’s April 14, 1993 visit, when crowds welcomed him following the U.S.-led liberation of Kuwait in 1991. There are 15,000 U.S. troops stationed in Kuwait, which is a transit point for forces headed to Iraq. Kuwait has said it will not allow the United States to use its territory for any strike against Iran, however.

“Mr. President, the region needs smart initiatives not smart bombs,” said the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai in a front-page editorial. Relatives of Kuwaiti detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, called for the release of the four remaining Kuwaiti prisoners.

Bush met with Kuwait’s emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, who told the president he was delighted by his visit. “We are equally delighted to see you working on issues that are very important to all of us here,” Sheikh Sabah said.

On Jan. 12 Bush became the first U.S. president to visit Bahrain, where he was greeted at the airport by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa and sword dancers. U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT)/5th Fleet is headquartered in Manama, Bahrain. Protesters outside the U.S. Embassy in Manama chanted: “U.S. base out of Bahrain.” Demonstrators carried a giant poster of Bush, under which they wrote in English: “Aggression against Iraq people is a war crime and a genocide.” Another banner read, “Bush, you care about one Israeli prisoner but what about 10,000 Palestinian civilian prisoners?” Other signs stated: “America cares for oil, not democracy,” and “Get out of Bahrain, criminal.”

After a briefing on the Jan. 6 Strait of Hormuz alleged confrontation between U.S. Navy and Iranian boats, the president ate pancakes, syrup and bacon with American sailors, and proceeded to his next stop, the United Arab Emirates.

UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan and Vice President Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, greeted President Bush politely at the airport in Abu Dhabi. In a region known for its hospitality to visitors, editors of local newspapers took off their gloves. A “Letter to George W. Bush,” published on the front page of Dubai’s Gulf News, the UAE’s leading English-language newspaper, on Jan. 10, 2008, read:

“Dear Mr. President:

“On the occasion of your first official trip to this vital region, it is only appropriate to raise a few points which might also be raised by the leaders you meet. Unfortunately, you landed here with prejudice and pre-formed opinions. By describing Israel, moments after you arrived, as ‘the land of freedom’ and ‘justice,’ you have shown total ignorance of the political situation in the Middle East and the issue you claim to want to solve in the remaining 12 months of your presidency.

“Israel, Mr. President, continues to defy every U.N. resolution, exercise unprecedented oppression on the occupied Palestinian people and persecute its Muslim and Christian population. We realize that containing Iran, selling more weapons and securing cheap oil supplies are the main issues on your mind as you tour the region. But you need to look beyond the neocon rhetoric and speak directly to the people who have been unjustly thrown out of their land, victimized by your ‘strong ally’ Israel.

“As for other matters, such as the promise of democracy and human rights, which you are expected to raise in your official talks in the region, we really don’t take them seriously. Your dreadful record on both gives you no moral right to lecture others.”

The Gulf News editor then went on to remind the president about his sorry record, citing colossal mistakes in Iraq such as the looting of the National Museum, disbanding the Iraqi army, Abu Ghraib, torture, ghost WMD, Halliburton, Blackwater, deadly security contractors, and the Haditha massacre.

Returning to Bush’s “blind support of Israel,” he blamed the president for instigating the suffering of Gaza, ignoring the expansion of illegal Israeli colonies and defying U.N. resolutions. Nor did he let Bush off the hook for Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon, pointing out that Bush provided Israel with new “bunker buster” bombs to attack Lebanese towns.

“It has been reported that you are here to ‘lecture’ us on democracy and human rights. But with a record like yours, you will not be very convincing. The people you are addressing have greater respect for human rights and dignity.

“You also said that your current tour aims to realize the long neglected peace in the Middle East. Regional peace, Mr. President, will not be achieved by escalating tension and threatening to change regimes. And most importantly, it will not be achieved by supporting Israel, which continues to defy international law, occupy Arab lands, oppress the Palestinians and rebuff peace initiatives.”

The editorial concluded: “We hope you have enjoyed the trip so far. The scenery is great. The food is exotic. As for the more ‘serious’ things, it is unlikely you will make any difference.”

Would that the American media were so forthright!

President Bush’s Jan. 13 address in Abu Dhabi was described by his aides as the keynote speech of his regional tour. Despite a U.S. intelligence report in December that concluded Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, the president told this Persian Gulf country, only 150 miles from Iran, that Tehran threatened the security of all nations and should be confronted “before it’s too late.” Iran “seeks to intimidate its neighbors with missiles and bellicose rhetoric,” Bush said, unaware of any irony.

“Bush at it, Again,” was the title of another blunt editorial greeting the president as he arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Jan. 14, 2008. The Saudi Gazette, an English-language newspaper headquartered in Jeddah, had this to say about Bush’s Iran-Bash Fest:

“President Bush chose Abu Dhabi and the midway point of his Middle Eastern sojourn to attack Iran. It was, as usual, a display of the fairly muddled thinking behind the current foreign policy of the United States.

“Bush said Iran funds terrorist extremists, undermines peace in Lebanon, sends arms to the Taliban, seeks to intimidate its neighbors with alarming rhetoric, defies the United Nations and destabilizes the entire region by refusing to be open about its nuclear program.

“If the part about sending arms to the Taliban were removed,” the paper pointed out, “it would be easy to mistake this description of Iran for a description of Israel. The difference is that Iran has just agreed to respond to the unanswered questions about its nuclear program while Israel continues to deny the well-known fact of the existence of its own nuclear arsenal.

“The part about intimidating neighbors with alarming rhetoric sounds suspiciously like the U.S. these days, though the Bush administration uses its alarming rhetoric—followed by invasion—to intimidate countries half a world away.

“Bush also said the Iranian government in Tehran needs to make itself accountable to its people. While that may be true, this is a stark case of the pot calling the kettle black.

“The Bush administration has done everything in its power, both legally and illegally, to blur the hallmark transparency of the U.S. government, keeping its own citizens in the dark about policies and actions that have had direct effects on their civil rights—not to mention the lives of their sons and daughters in Iraq.

“The recent announcement that U.S. intelligence agencies claimed Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program a few years ago was hopefully a harbinger of a more enlightened approach to relations between the two countries. Instead, we get a much-hyped confrontation in the Arabian Gulf between U.S. warships and Iranian motor boats followed by Bush’s patented attack on Iran.

“And, still, despite the heightened rhetoric, accusations and threats, the U.S. refuses to hold direct talks with a country in which it has meddled for more than half a century. If this is the Bush definition of diplomacy, he needs to pick up a dictionary.”

The next day, a Jan. 15, 2008 editorial titled “Peace Now” in the Arab News, Saudi Arabia’s leading English-language newspaper, kept up the heat:

“Our region is not short of bloodshed and instability. Iraq, Lebanon, the occupied Palestinian territories and Afghanistan are all scenes of past and present conflicts where largely innocent blood has flowed in plenty. We do not need yet another dangerous conflict.

“That is why it was so sad, even depressing, to hear U.S. President George W. Bush use his visit to the Gulf to continue his saber-rattling against the Iranians—and over a nuclear weapons program which his own intelligence chiefs say Tehran abandoned five years ago. To any dispassionate observer, U.S. military action against Iran is unthinkable. Unfortunately the Bush administration’s record since 9/11 has not only embraced the unthinkable but more dangerously, it has embraced it in an unthinking fashion.

“To continue such dire warnings was inconsiderate given that Bush was the guest of Gulf states which are on Iran’s doorstep. Such warnings were not what we wanted to hear. As Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal told his Canadian counterpart Maxime Bernier this week in a message that he then repeated to French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchne—confrontational behavior by Washington toward Iran was not the answer. If Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states had a problem with Iran concerning its nuclear program, then they would talk to Tehran as neighbors should....

“Purblind U.S. policies and Washington’s desperate failure time and again to listen to the advice and guidance of its Arab friends in the region have brought us to this new moment of tension with Iran. We do not need more threats of war. Warmongering has already created the greatest level of regional instability in 60 years. Bush’s inflammatory threats against Iran ride roughshod over the counsels of peace that he has heard from every Arab government on his Middle East visit.

“Whatever threat Iran may constitute, now or in the future, must be addressed peaceably and through negotiations. The consequences of further war in the region are hideous, not least because they are incalculable. Even Bush, with the ruin of Iraq before him, must surely see that. Yet in his confrontational remarks about Iran, he offers no carrot, no inducement, no compromise—only the big U.S. stick. This is not diplomacy in search of peace. It is madness in search of war.”

“It’s unfortunate, indeed a tragedy that Bush decided to visit us in his final year in office,” wrote Sabria Jawhar in his Saudi Gazette column of Jan. 15—Bush’s last day in the Gulf before going to Sharm el-Sheikh, in Egypt. “Imagine what could have been accomplished [and, we might add, averted] if he had visited us in 2002.”

Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.