Maybe it was the Martin Luther King holiday and remembering the soaring rhetoric aimed at our better angels and the principles Americans strive, often imperfectly, to practice. President Bush was a serious disappointment in the Middle East. No, this is not a syntax joke. Mr. Bush is fully capable of soaring rhetoric - check his speech at Whitehall, or the June 24th speech on the Palestinians, or his post-9-11 speech to the Joint Session of Congress. It wasn’t how he said it that troubles us. It was what he said or didn’t say.
He told the Palestinians and Israelis to “make peace,” i.e., to make a Palestinian state and stop building houses for Jews (a key Saudi demand). Not a word by the President (or Mr. Olmert) about Sderot, Gilad Shalit or halting incitement to violence in the Palestinian institutions Abu Mazen still controls. Not a word about the Palestinian civil war or the Palestinian war against Israel. He was, at least, sincere at Yad Vashem.
On to Saudi Arabia and the announcement of an enormous, sophisticated arms sale to the kingdom. The President threw his rhetorical arms around King Abdullah. Not a demand in sight. No brave speeches about democracy, civil society, women’s rights or religious freedom. Mr. Bush made sure he didn’t arrive on a Sunday. [Ironically, Michael Abramowitz of The Washington Post said, “There is a bond between the president and the king... They are both religious men - obviously, of different faiths - and I think they share that.” We suspect he didn’t ask to visit the Riyadh synagogue.]
We are not big Bush/Saudi conspiratorialists. Every American president since FDR has been in bed with Saudi interests because our country runs on their oil. President Clinton was no less kissy with the Saudis, and our next president is unlikely to be either unless we suddenly drill for domestic oil or make a breakthrough in hydrogen fuel cells. Both possible, neither likely. The Saudis are not alone responsible for $100/bbl oil and we understand the President’s desire to have some of that money recycled to the United States rather than France, Britain or Germany in pursuit of arms.
But we thought Mr. Bush at least understood the fight. Radical Islamists, Sunni and Shiite, have declared war on the principles of tolerance; diversity; equality; freedom of speech, dress and thought; and on other, less radical, more tolerant forms of Islam and on tolerant Muslims themselves - in short, war on every principle for which America stands. People are dying every day in this war, and Saudi/Wahhabi intolerance of “the other” and support for al Qaeda - like Iranian support for Hezbollah - increases the threats to the United States and to our real friends in the region.
OK, explicitly criticizing a society that imprisons rape victims and beheads people in the public square would be rude while standing there, but Mr. Bush could reasonably have quoted Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King, or Thomas Jefferson. Friends and enemies of freedom would both have understood.
Instead, he went like a peddler with his wares on his back, sounding more like “Chicken Kiev” than “Tear this Wall Down” or “I Have a Dream.” He failed the people of the region who put their hopes in him and failed his people at home.
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