Bush heads for Middle East but no one there gives a ***; first time in a century US president is irrelevant

As Bush Heads to Mideast, Renewed Questions on Iran
Israel, Arab Leaders Doubt U.S. Resolve

By Michael Abramowitz and Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, January 7, 2008; A12



President Bush intends to use his first extended tour of the Middle
East to rally support for international pressure against Iran, even as
a recent U.S. intelligence report playing down Tehran's nuclear
ambitions has left Israeli and Arab leaders rethinking their own
approach toward Iran and questioning Washington's resolve, according
to senior U.S. officials, diplomats and regional experts.

Bush is to leave Tuesday for Israel, where he hopes to jump-start the
Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations he launched in Annapolis late
last year. But in Jerusalem and some of the Arab countries Bush plans
to visit, Iran's growing regional influence looms larger than the
peace process or the Iraq war. Leaders in the region are gauging
whether the lame-duck administration has the interest and ability to
cope with Iran, or whether they should pursue their own military and
diplomatic solutions.

"Part of the reason I'm going to the Middle East is to make it
abundantly clear to nations in that part of the world that we view
Iran as a threat, and that the [National Intelligence Estimate] in no
way lessens that threat, but in fact clarifies the threat," Bush said
in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot released
Friday.

Administration officials have been alarmed by what they see as Iran's
efforts to develop a nuclear weapon and intimidate its Sunni
neighbors. But their efforts to build support for sanctions and other
pressure on Tehran took a serious hit last month when a National
Intelligence Estimate -- representing the shared view of U.S.
intelligence agencies -- concluded that Iran halted its nuclear arms
program in 2003.

Administration officials insist that the estimate showed Iran remains
capable of, and interested in, developing a nuclear weapon. But
Israel, which is believed to have nuclear weapons, saw the report as a
sign that Washington is flagging in its zeal to confront Iran, which
they regard as a threat to its existence. And in Arab Sunni countries
such as Saudi Arabia, which feel threatened by the rising Shiite power
that Iran represents, the NIE renewed doubts over whether the United
States might be seeking an accommodation with Tehran.

In an interview yesterday, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa
cited recent overtures between Iran and Arab countries and said Arab
nations are exercising a prerogative to set their own course on Iran.
"As long as they have no nuclear program . . . why should we isolate
Iran? Why punish Iran, now?" he asked.

One senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity
because he is not authorized to speak publicly about the trip said
many Middle Eastern governments were "confused" by the NIE. "No Arab
regime understands why the United States would publish an intelligence
estimate." The official said Iran will be an important focus of Bush's
conversations with regional leaders, with the president seeking to
reassure them of U.S. staying power in the Middle East.

"Iran, for Israel, is topic Number One," said Meir Javedanfar, an
Iranian expatriate living in Israel who runs an economic and political
analysis company, and has written a book about Iran's nuclear program.
"Most of the Israeli politicians and population see Iran as a greater
threat than Hamas," he said, comparing Iran to the Islamic movement
that controls Gaza. "And the Israeli government will be eager for Bush
to show them that he is still committed to stopping Iran."

In Tehran yesterday, an Iranian government spokesman said Bush had
failed to create an anti-Iran coalition. "The aim of these repeated
trips is to compensate for the failed policies of America in the
region," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini,
according to wire reports.

Bush is planning stops in Israel, the Palestinian territories, Egypt,
Saudi Arabia and several smaller Gulf countries during his eight-day
trip. While in Kuwait, Bush will meet for the first time in four
months with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq,
and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, to discuss Iraq.

In Israel, which he is visiting for the first time as president, Bush
is likely to be greeted as one of the country's greatest friends. But
in the Arab world, his presidency has been perceived as damaging to
the region and to U.S. prestige.

The overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Sunni Arab regime in Iraq, which
long served as a counterweight to Shiite Muslim Iran, has allowed
Iran's influence to grow. At the same time, Arab leaders blame the
breakdown, until recently, of Israeli-Palestinian talks on Bush's
refusal to assume the U.S. president's traditional hands-on role in
Middle East peace negotiations.

Arab dissidents were elated and then devastated when Bush called for
democracy in the region in 2005, only to appear to back away after
election victories in Iraq and the Palestinian territories by
religious blocs -- the only groups that had built popular support
under autocratic governments. Bush plans to offer something of a
report card on his Middle East "freedom agenda" when he stops in the
United Arab Emirates' capital, Abu Dhabi, next week.

In Arab streets, many blame Washington for the plight of Iraqis and
Palestinians. Bush's presidency has been "disastrous," said Hisham
Kassem, an Egyptian journalist who received a National Endowment for
Democracy award from him last fall. "America's neither feared nor
loved. It's neither feared by the regimes anymore, and it's hated by
the people of the Middle East. . . . That's the Bush legacy."

Complicating matters has been the effort by Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, buoyed by soaring oil revenues, to expand Tehran's clout.
The United States also sees Iranian meddling in Lebanon and
Palestinian affairs through ties to Hezbollah and Hamas. But many
Arabs blame U.S. actions for Iran's influence. In Iraq, where the 2003
U.S. invasion led to a Shiite government, "Iran got the best help"
possible from Washington, Moussa said.

In December, Ahmadinejad scored a diplomatic trifecta: He spoke before
the Gulf Cooperation Council, an Arab bloc formed to counter Iran, in
the first such appearance by an Iranian president. He also visited
Mecca for the haj religious pilgrimage at the invitation of Saudi King
Abdullah, another first for an Iranian president.

Ahmadinejad closed the year by sending envoy Ali Larijani to Egypt, a
country that has frozen ties with Iran for 28 years, offering to help
Cairo develop nuclear energy. Talk of resuming diplomatic relations
followed.

The challenge for Bush, according to analysts in Washington and the
Middle East, is to convince Arab countries that their best hope for
minimizing the Iranian threat is to stick with the United States --
while dissuading Israel from a unilateral, preemptive strike on
Tehran's nuclear facilities.

"The real question is what can the president say or do to reassure
them about Iranian power?" said Richard N. Haass, a former senior
State Department official and president of the Council on Foreign
Relations.

Bush's key stop may be in Riyadh, where Bush will hold a rare face-to-
face meeting with King Abdullah, who has been alternately critical and
supportive of U.S. efforts on Iraq, Israeli-Palestinian talks and the
rest of the Middle East. The Saudi royal family, which rules in
alliance with hard-line Sunni clerics, is concerned about the spread
of Iranian influence and is unhappy with the new Shiite dominance of
Iraq.

But Abdullah prefers to co-opt enemies, not confront them, and appears
to be seeking a deal with Ahmadinejad, said Bruce Riedel, who worked
on Middle East affairs in the Clinton and Bush administrations. "I
think there is a great effort on both Riyadh and Washington's part to
obscure that because they do not want the public spat," he said.

The senior U.S. official was skeptical, saying that the Saudis do not
invite the Iranian president to their meetings -- "he invites
himself."

"They are going to have a relationship with Iran," this official said.
"Saudi diplomacy is traditionally quite cautious and conservative, but
don't mistake caution and conservatism for sympathy."

But some Arabs suspect the Bush administration may decide it has to
work with Iran to preserve security gains in Iraq. Khalid al-Dakheel,
a political scientist at King Saud University in Riyadh, said "some
people here think, or have the jitters, that this administration or
the next administration . . . might find themselves in a position to
reconcile themselves with the Iranians."

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