Yes, Bush Is Naked, What of It?

On the Middle East Catwalk with the Bush Administration

by Tony Karon

"President Bush’s announcement of a new Middle East summit is being dutifully reported as a move to “revive” the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, designed to culminate in a two-state solution. But the meeting, if it ever comes about, will be nothing of the sort. U.S. officials have already made clear that the gathering’s purpose will be “to review progress toward building Palestinian institutions, look for ways to support further reforms and support the effort going on right now between the parties together.”

Mushy? Of course it’s mushy. The Bush speech simply restated the key term of the administration’s long dead “roadmap” — before there can be peace talks, the Palestinians will be required to destroy Hamas. In other words, there will be no peace talks, just a lot of wishful thinking. As White House Press Secretary Tony Snow put it, “I think a lot of people are inclined to try to treat this as a big peace conference. It’s not.”......

In this absurdist take on the old fairytale, whenever anyone points out that the emperor has no clothes, they are simply told “duh!” before the players get back acting as if it’s fashion week in the palace. The parlor game in all of this might be deciding which of Bush’s courtiers is the most craven and cynical. The competition is fierce, but here’s a handicapping of the race....

.....Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) had an ambiguous role in the script written by Ariel Sharon and green-lighted by the Bush administration:

“Let Abu Mazen succeed in order to marginalize Arafat, end the armed intifada, and achieve for Israel a measure of security. But let him succeed only so far and no further. Let him bring about a more peaceful situation without benefiting from its potential political returns. For Abu Mazen’s success could bring him strength, and his strength would revitalize the threat of a unified Palestinian movement that his rise was meant to thwart.”

Having gambled his political life on the willingness of the United States to press Israel to conclude a two-state deal, Abbas has long been glumly aware of just how bare the negotiation cupboard really is. For years now, he has had to stand by silently being damned, in the eyes of his own people, by the minimalist praise and parsimonious gestures occasionally tossed his way......

That really is one great tragedy of the Bush administration, which essentially outsourced its policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Ariel Sharon. Sharon’s ideas are now so deeply embedded in the mainstream of both parties on Capitol Hill that Congress is even more anti-Palestinian than the administration. As the presidential candidates of both parties fall over one another to take ever harder-line stances on the Palestinians, Iran, and any other subject of concern to Israel, it’s an odds-on bet that the naked imperial fashion show will continue, no matter who replaces Bush on the imperial throne."