Mideast allies near a state of panic

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-

1716.story?coll=la-home-headlines

"WASHINGTON - President Bush and his top advisors fanned out across the
troubled Middle East over the last week to showcase their diplomatic
initiatives to restore strained relationships with traditional allies
and forge new ones with leaders in Iraq.

But instead of flaunting stronger ties and steadfast American influence,
the president's journey found friends both old and new near a state of
panic. Mideast leaders expressed soaring concern over upheavals across
the region that the United States helped ignite through its invasion of
Iraq and push for democracy - and fear that the Bush administration may
make things worse."

Yup, folks, priviledged rich kid brings Monkey foreign policy
and chaos to the most important region of the world. You MUST
read this entire article.

What's your frickability meter reading now, Uncle Wally?

Here, I'll help.

"President Bush's summit in Jordan with the Iraqi prime minister proved
an awkward encounter that deepened doubts about the relationship. Vice
President ***** Cheney's stop in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, yielded a
blunt warning from the kingdom's leaders. And Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice's swing through the West Bank and Israel, intended to
build Arab support by showing a new U.S. push for peace, found little to
work with.

In all, visits designed to show the American team in charge ended
instead in diplomatic embarrassment and disappointment, with U.S.
leaders rebuked and lectured by Arab counterparts. The trips
demonstrated that U.S. allies in the region were struggling to
understand what to make of the difficult relationship, and to figure
whether, with a new Democratic majority taking over Congress, Bush even
had control over his nation's Mideast policy.


Arabs are "trying to figure out what the Americans are going to do, and
trying develop their own plans," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), one of
his party's point men on Iraq. "They're trying to figure out their Plan
B."

The allies' predicament was described by Jordan's King Abdullah II last
week, before Bush arrived in Amman, the capital. Abdullah, one of
America's steadiest friends in the region, warned that the Mideast faced
the threat of three simultaneous civil wars - in Iraq, Lebanon and the
Palestinian territories. And he made clear that the burden of dealing
with it rested largely with the United States.

"Something dramatic" needed to come out of Bush's meetings with Iraqi
Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to defuse the three-way threat, Abdullah
said, because "I don't think we're in a position where we can come back
and visit the problem in early 2007."

The only regional leader to voice unqualified support for the Bush
administration has been Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has gone
so far as to say that the Iraq invasion contributed to regional
stability.

To Middle East observers, Bush can no longer speak for the United States
as he did before because of the domestic pressure for a change of course
in Iraq, said Nathan Brown, a specialist on Arab politics at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"He can talk all he wants about 'staying until the job is done,' but
these leaders can read about the American political scene and see that
he may not be able to deliver that," Brown said.

The Bush-Maliki meeting Thursday, closely watched around the world in
anticipation of a possible change in U.S. strategy, produced no shift in
declared aims. Rather, it resulted in diplomatic stumbles that seemed to
belie the leaders' claims that their relationship was intact.

On the eve of the summit, a leaked memo written by Bush's national
security advisor, Stephen Hadley, showed that U.S. officials questioned
Maliki's abilities. But the memo also was a reminder of dwindling U.S.
influence over Iraq. Some of the steps that Hadley said the Iraqis
should take, such as providing public services to Sunni Arabs as well as
Shiites, were moves that the Americans had demanded for many months,
without success.

The leak of the memo cast a shadow over the summit, and Maliki abruptly
canceled the first scheduled meeting, a conversation among Bush, Maliki
and Abdullah. White House aides insisted that the cancellation was not a
snub.

One Middle East diplomat said later in an interview that Maliki had
canceled the meeting to put distance between him and Bush at a time when
Iraq's Shiite lawmakers and Cabinet ministers with ties to militant
cleric Muqtada Sadr had halted their participation in the government to
protest the summit.

On Saturday, in his regular radio address, Bush said that his
relationship with Maliki was, in fact, improving.

"With each meeting, I'm coming to know him better, and I'm becoming more
impressed by his desire to make the difficult choices that will put his
country on a better path," Bush said.

During the trip, Bush was unable to distance himself from the fierce
debate about Iraq policy back home. The president felt the need to
respond to news accounts saying that an advisory panel on Iraq would
urge a gradual withdrawal of combat troops from the region. He insisted
that suggestions for such a "graceful exit" were not realistic.

Despite this, Bush repeated in his radio address that he intended to
look for a bipartisan solution to the war, and would listen to the
recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which is scheduled to present
its findings Wednesday.

He also said that his own internal review, coming from Pentagon and
White House officials, among others, was near completion, suggesting
that he may be discussing the options before him over the next several
days.

"I want to hear all advice before I make any decisions about adjustments
to our strategy in Iraq," Bush said.


Cheney's trip to talk to Saudi King Abdullah was far less visible than
Bush's mission, but helped to make painfully clear the gap between U.S.
goals and those of its Arab allies.

U.S. officials said Cheney initiated the trip. But foreign diplomats
said that Saudi leaders sought the visit to express their concern about
the region, including fears of a U.S. departure and what they see as
excessive American support for the Shiite faction in Iraq.

After the meeting with Cheney, Saudi officials released an unusual
statement pointedly highlighting American responsibility for
deterioration of stability in the region.

The Saudi officials cited "the direct influence of . the United States
on the issues of the region" and said it was important for U.S.
influence "to be in accord with the region's actual condition and its
historical equilibrium," an apparent reference to the Sunni-Shiite
balance.

The Saudi statement also said the U.S. in the Middle East should "pursue
equitable means that contribute to ending its conflicts," pointing to
the Israeli-Palestinian situation.

The statement "came pretty close to a rebuke, by Saudi standards," said
Charles W. Freeman Jr., a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. "It
said, in effect, that the United States needs to behave responsibly."

There have been other signals of Saudi anxiety recently.

On Wednesday, an advisor to the Saudi government wrote in the Washington
Post that if the United States pulled out of Iraq, "massive Saudi
intervention" would ensue to protect Sunnis from Shiite militias.

The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al Faisal,
warned in a speech in October against an American withdrawal, saying
that "since the United States came into Iraq uninvited, it should not
leave Iraq uninvited."

Rice encountered the limits of U.S. influence when she visited Jerusalem
and the West Bank town of Jericho last week, trying to entice Arab
confidence by displaying a renewed interest in Israeli-Palestinian
peace.

But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was gloomy about the
prospects for a deal between his Fatah party and the militant group
Hamas that would allow formation of a nonsectarian government and open
the way for increased aid and, potentially, peace talks with Israel.

Rice said afterward that the administration "cannot create the
circumstances" for peace.

"This is the kind of thing that takes time," she said. "You don't expect
great leaps forward."

Expressing deeper unhappiness with the United States, leaders from
Jordan, Egypt and Persian Gulf countries told Rice during her trip to an
economic development conference in Jordan on Friday that the U.S. had a
responsibility to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which they and
many analysts viewed as the key to regional stability.

Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, urged greater U.S.
action, warning that the Middle East was becoming "an abyss.. The region
is facing real failure."

Mideast allies near a state of panic

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-usmideast3dec03,0,7181716.story?coll=la-home-headlines

"WASHINGTON - President Bush and his top advisors fanned out across the
troubled Middle East over the last week to showcase their diplomatic
initiatives to restore strained relationships with traditional allies and
forge new ones with leaders in Iraq.

But instead of flaunting stronger ties and steadfast American influence, the
president's journey found friends both old and new near a state of panic.
Mideast leaders expressed soaring concern over upheavals across the region
that the United States helped ignite through its invasion of Iraq and push
for democracy - and fear that the Bush administration may make things
worse."

Yup, folks, priviledged rich kid brings Monkey foreign policy and
chaos to the most important region of the world. You MUST read
this entire article.

What's your frickability meter reading now, Uncle Wally?

Here, I'll help.

"President Bush's summit in Jordan with the Iraqi prime minister proved an
awkward encounter that deepened doubts about the relationship. Vice
President ***** Cheney's stop in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, yielded a blunt
warning from the kingdom's leaders. And Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice's swing through the West Bank and Israel, intended to build Arab
support by showing a new U.S. push for peace, found little to work with.

In all, visits designed to show the American team in charge ended instead in
diplomatic embarrassment and disappointment, with U.S. leaders rebuked and
lectured by Arab counterparts. The trips demonstrated that U.S. allies in
the region were struggling to understand what to make of the difficult
relationship, and to figure whether, with a new Democratic majority taking
over Congress, Bush even had control over his nation's Mideast policy.


Arabs are "trying to figure out what the Americans are going to do, and
trying develop their own plans," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), one of his
party's point men on Iraq. "They're trying to figure out their Plan B."

The allies' predicament was described by Jordan's King Abdullah II last
week, before Bush arrived in Amman, the capital. Abdullah, one of America's
steadiest friends in the region, warned that the Mideast faced the threat of
three simultaneous civil wars - in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian
territories. And he made clear that the burden of dealing with it rested
largely with the United States.

"Something dramatic" needed to come out of Bush's meetings with Iraqi Prime
Minister Nouri Maliki to defuse the three-way threat, Abdullah said, because
"I don't think we're in a position where we can come back and visit the
problem in early 2007."

The only regional leader to voice unqualified support for the Bush
administration has been Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has gone so
far as to say that the Iraq invasion contributed to regional stability.

To Middle East observers, Bush can no longer speak for the United States as
he did before because of the domestic pressure for a change of course in
Iraq, said Nathan Brown, a specialist on Arab politics at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace.

"He can talk all he wants about 'staying until the job is done,' but these
leaders can read about the American political scene and see that he may not
be able to deliver that," Brown said.

The Bush-Maliki meeting Thursday, closely watched around the world in
anticipation of a possible change in U.S. strategy, produced no shift in
declared aims. Rather, it resulted in diplomatic stumbles that seemed to
belie the leaders' claims that their relationship was intact.

On the eve of the summit, a leaked memo written by Bush's national security
advisor, Stephen Hadley, showed that U.S. officials questioned Maliki's
abilities. But the memo also was a reminder of dwindling U.S. influence over
Iraq. Some of the steps that Hadley said the Iraqis should take, such as
providing public services to Sunni Arabs as well as Shiites, were moves that
the Americans had demanded for many months, without success.

The leak of the memo cast a shadow over the summit, and Maliki abruptly
canceled the first scheduled meeting, a conversation among Bush, Maliki and
Abdullah. White House aides insisted that the cancellation was not a snub.

One Middle East diplomat said later in an interview that Maliki had canceled
the meeting to put distance between him and Bush at a time when Iraq's
Shiite lawmakers and Cabinet ministers with ties to militant cleric Muqtada
Sadr had halted their participation in the government to protest the summit.

On Saturday, in his regular radio address, Bush said that his relationship
with Maliki was, in fact, improving.

"With each meeting, I'm coming to know him better, and I'm becoming more
impressed by his desire to make the difficult choices that will put his
country on a better path," Bush said.

During the trip, Bush was unable to distance himself from the fierce debate
about Iraq policy back home. The president felt the need to respond to news
accounts saying that an advisory panel on Iraq would urge a gradual
withdrawal of combat troops from the region. He insisted that suggestions
for such a "graceful exit" were not realistic.

Despite this, Bush repeated in his radio address that he intended to look
for a bipartisan solution to the war, and would listen to the
recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which is scheduled to present its
findings Wednesday.

He also said that his own internal review, coming from Pentagon and White
House officials, among others, was near completion, suggesting that he may
be discussing the options before him over the next several days.

"I want to hear all advice before I make any decisions about adjustments to
our strategy in Iraq," Bush said.


Cheney's trip to talk to Saudi King Abdullah was far less visible than
Bush's mission, but helped to make painfully clear the gap between U.S.
goals and those of its Arab allies.

U.S. officials said Cheney initiated the trip. But foreign diplomats said
that Saudi leaders sought the visit to express their concern about the
region, including fears of a U.S. departure and what they see as excessive
American support for the Shiite faction in Iraq.

After the meeting with Cheney, Saudi officials released an unusual statement
pointedly highlighting American responsibility for deterioration of
stability in the region.

The Saudi officials cited "the direct influence of . the United States on
the issues of the region" and said it was important for U.S. influence "to
be in accord with the region's actual condition and its historical
equilibrium," an apparent reference to the Sunni-Shiite balance.

The Saudi statement also said the U.S. in the Middle East should "pursue
equitable means that contribute to ending its conflicts," pointing to the
Israeli-Palestinian situation.

The statement "came pretty close to a rebuke, by Saudi standards," said
Charles W. Freeman Jr., a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. "It said,
in effect, that the United States needs to behave responsibly."

There have been other signals of Saudi anxiety recently.

On Wednesday, an advisor to the Saudi government wrote in the Washington
Post that if the United States pulled out of Iraq, "massive Saudi
intervention" would ensue to protect Sunnis from Shiite militias.

The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al Faisal, warned in
a speech in October against an American withdrawal, saying that "since the
United States came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq uninvited."

Rice encountered the limits of U.S. influence when she visited Jerusalem and
the West Bank town of Jericho last week, trying to entice Arab confidence by
displaying a renewed interest in Israeli-Palestinian peace.

But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was gloomy about the
prospects for a deal between his Fatah party and the militant group Hamas
that would allow formation of a nonsectarian government and open the way for
increased aid and, potentially, peace talks with Israel.

Rice said afterward that the administration "cannot create the
circumstances" for peace.

"This is the kind of thing that takes time," she said. "You don't expect
great leaps forward."

Expressing deeper unhappiness with the United States, leaders from Jordan,
Egypt and Persian Gulf countries told Rice during her trip to an economic
development conference in Jordan on Friday that the U.S. had a
responsibility to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which they and
many analysts viewed as the key to regional stability.

Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, urged greater U.S. action,
warning that the Middle East was becoming "an abyss.. The region is facing
real failure."

Mideast allies near a state of panic

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-usmideast3dec03,0,718=

"WASHINGTON - President Bush and his top advisors fanned out across the
troubled Middle East over the last week to showcase their diplomatic
initiatives to restore strained relationships with traditional allies and
forge new ones with leaders in Iraq.

But instead of flaunting stronger ties and steadfast American influence, =

president's journey found friends both old and new near a state of panic.
Mideast leaders expressed soaring concern over upheavals across the region
that the United States helped ignite through its invasion of Iraq and push
for democracy - and fear that the Bush administration may make things
worse."

Yup, folks, priviledged rich kid brings Monkey foreign policy and
chaos to the most important region of the world. You MUST read
this entire article.

What's your frickability meter reading now, Uncle Wally?

Here, I'll help.

"President Bush's summit in Jordan with the Iraqi prime minister proved an
awkward encounter that deepened doubts about the relationship. Vice
President ***** Cheney's stop in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, yielded a blunt
warning from the kingdom's leaders. And Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice's swing through the West Bank and Israel, intended to build Arab
support by showing a new U.S. push for peace, found little to work with.

In all, visits designed to show the American team in charge ended instead=

diplomatic embarrassment and disappointment, with U.S. leaders rebuked and
lectured by Arab counterparts. The trips demonstrated that U.S. allies in
the region were struggling to understand what to make of the difficult
relationship, and to figure whether, with a new Democratic majority taking
over Congress, Bush even had control over his nation's Mideast policy.


Arabs are "trying to figure out what the Americans are going to do, and
trying develop their own plans," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), one of his
party's point men on Iraq. "They're trying to figure out their Plan B."

The allies' predicament was described by Jordan's King Abdullah II last
week, before Bush arrived in Amman, the capital. Abdullah, one of America=

steadiest friends in the region, warned that the Mideast faced the threat=

three simultaneous civil wars - in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian
territories. And he made clear that the burden of dealing with it rested
largely with the United States.

"Something dramatic" needed to come out of Bush's meetings with Iraqi Pri=

Minister Nouri Maliki to defuse the three-way threat, Abdullah said, beca=

"I don't think we're in a position where we can come back and visit the
problem in early 2007."

The only regional leader to voice unqualified support for the Bush
administration has been Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has gone =

far as to say that the Iraq invasion contributed to regional stability.

To Middle East observers, Bush can no longer speak for the United States =

he did before because of the domestic pressure for a change of course in
Iraq, said Nathan Brown, a specialist on Arab politics at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace.

"He can talk all he wants about 'staying until the job is done,' but these
leaders can read about the American political scene and see that he may n=

be able to deliver that," Brown said.

The Bush-Maliki meeting Thursday, closely watched around the world in
anticipation of a possible change in U.S. strategy, produced no shift in
declared aims. Rather, it resulted in diplomatic stumbles that seemed to
belie the leaders' claims that their relationship was intact.

On the eve of the summit, a leaked memo written by Bush's national securi=

advisor, Stephen Hadley, showed that U.S. officials questioned Maliki's
abilities. But the memo also was a reminder of dwindling U.S. influence o=

Iraq. Some of the steps that Hadley said the Iraqis should take, such as
providing public services to Sunni Arabs as well as Shiites, were moves t=

the Americans had demanded for many months, without success.

The leak of the memo cast a shadow over the summit, and Maliki abruptly
canceled the first scheduled meeting, a conversation among Bush, Maliki a=

Abdullah. White House aides insisted that the cancellation was not a snub.

One Middle East diplomat said later in an interview that Maliki had cance=

the meeting to put distance between him and Bush at a time when Iraq's
Shiite lawmakers and Cabinet ministers with ties to militant cleric Muqta=

Sadr had halted their participation in the government to protest the summ=

On Saturday, in his regular radio address, Bush said that his relationship
with Maliki was, in fact, improving.

"With each meeting, I'm coming to know him better, and I'm becoming more
impressed by his desire to make the difficult choices that will put his
country on a better path," Bush said.

During the trip, Bush was unable to distance himself from the fierce deba=

about Iraq policy back home. The president felt the need to respond to ne=

accounts saying that an advisory panel on Iraq would urge a gradual
withdrawal of combat troops from the region. He insisted that suggestions
for such a "graceful exit" were not realistic.

Despite this, Bush repeated in his radio address that he intended to look
for a bipartisan solution to the war, and would listen to the
recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which is scheduled to present its
findings Wednesday.

He also said that his own internal review, coming from Pentagon and White
House officials, among others, was near completion, suggesting that he may
be discussing the options before him over the next several days.

"I want to hear all advice before I make any decisions about adjustments =

our strategy in Iraq," Bush said.


Cheney's trip to talk to Saudi King Abdullah was far less visible than
Bush's mission, but helped to make painfully clear the gap between U.S.
goals and those of its Arab allies.

U.S. officials said Cheney initiated the trip. But foreign diplomats said
that Saudi leaders sought the visit to express their concern about the
region, including fears of a U.S. departure and what they see as excessive
American support for the Shiite faction in Iraq.

After the meeting with Cheney, Saudi officials released an unusual statem=

pointedly highlighting American responsibility for deterioration of
stability in the region.

The Saudi officials cited "the direct influence of . the United States on
the issues of the region" and said it was important for U.S. influence "to
be in accord with the region's actual condition and its historical
equilibrium," an apparent reference to the Sunni-Shiite balance.

The Saudi statement also said the U.S. in the Middle East should "pursue
equitable means that contribute to ending its conflicts," pointing to the
Israeli-Palestinian situation.

The statement "came pretty close to a rebuke, by Saudi standards," said
Charles W. Freeman Jr., a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. "It sai=

in effect, that the United States needs to behave responsibly."

There have been other signals of Saudi anxiety recently.

On Wednesday, an advisor to the Saudi government wrote in the Washington
Post that if the United States pulled out of Iraq, "massive Saudi
intervention" would ensue to protect Sunnis from Shiite militias.

The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al Faisal, warned=

a speech in October against an American withdrawal, saying that "since the
United States came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq uninvite=

Rice encountered the limits of U.S. influence when she visited Jerusalem =

the West Bank town of Jericho last week, trying to entice Arab confidence=

displaying a renewed interest in Israeli-Palestinian peace.

But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was gloomy about the
prospects for a deal between his Fatah party and the militant group Hamas
that would allow formation of a nonsectarian government and open the way =

increased aid and, potentially, peace talks with Israel.

Rice said afterward that the administration "cannot create the
circumstances" for peace.

"This is the kind of thing that takes time," she said. "You don't expect
great leaps forward."

Expressing deeper unhappiness with the United States, leaders from Jordan,
Egypt and Persian Gulf countries told Rice during her trip to an economic
development conference in Jordan on Friday that the U.S. had a
responsibility to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which they and
many analysts viewed as the key to regional stability.

Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, urged greater U.S. acti=

warning that the Middle East was becoming "an abyss.. The region is facing
real failure."