Thank you and au revoir Mr President

Jan.14, 2008

History and geopolitics

IN PRINCIPLE and context, US President George W Bush's speech in Abu Dhabi on Sunday sounded great and befiting the president of the world's strongest power and a country founded on noble democratic principles and respect for human rights and dignity. His assertions and declarations on the region's crises and problems, whether in Palestine, Lebanon or Iraq, were perfect. His pledge of American support for peace between Israel and the Palestinians was a reaffirmation of the strong position he adopted at the Annapolis conference in November.
However, there were several dampners in what Bush told us. First of all, he linked Israeli-Palestinian peace directly with "security" of Israel. We know that Israel uses its "security" as the best smokescreen for its arbitrary positions and practices in the occupied territories and beyond. Our close understanding of the way Israel manipulates things to suit its interests prompts us to be sceptical how far the US would be able to brush aside Israeli arguments based on its "security" imperatives while negotiating peace with the Palestinians.
In fact, Bush should be trying to convince Israel that its "security" could not be guaranteed through the use of military might, but only through working out a just, fair and comprensive settlement with the Palestinians.
As was expected, Bush described Iran as the greatest sponsor of state terrorism in the world and underlined what he saw as the need to confront Iranian designs to destabilise the region. It is a view that is not necessarily shared by many in the region, which is also aware that Bush views Iran from a strictly Israeli perspective rather than even an American perspective. What we would have liked to hear from Bush was an understanding of the history of our region and the traditional relations that have prevailed in the Gulf for centuries. Iran, whether Israel likes it or not, is part and parcel of the region with strong ties with its neighbours in the Gulf that could not be negated for whatever purposes as dictated by external interests.
We would have expected Bush to offer to open a no-holds-barred diplomatic dialogue with Iran with the transparent objective of working out a modus vivendi between Washington and Tehran, particularly that the US president has been emphasising that he prefers diplomacy over military means in his approach to Iran.
Surely, Bush would and should have known before he set out to the region that he could not have hoped to secure the kind of Arab support that he sought against Iran. As such, he should have also realised that the whole objective of his reference to Iran was simply to restate the US position.
On the bilateral front, the Bush visit was indeed a landmark in US-UAE relations that were cemented with the US recognition of the UAE federation when it was launched in 1971.
As the US president winds up his visit to to the UAE today, both sides would be reflecting on the fact that it has given a major boost to bilateral relations in a way that also recognises that the UAE has come a long way from 1971 and has already claimed a prominent position among leaders of the international community in the 36 years of its existence as a federation. Indeed, Bush's visit to the UAE reaffirmed the progress and development that the country has made and is continuing to make at an unparallelled pace.

Thank you and au revoir Mr President