Bush’s Mid-East PolicyIs Driven by War, Not Peace

What has happened in the Middle East due to American policy confirms the fact that the Bush Administration has distinguished itself from former administrations by not availing itself of the many lessons of the last seven years.

This administration will indeed leave a legacy of a bloody history and an inclination towards power and hegemony, still making the same mistakes made in the past and digging themselves even deeper into the hole.

They say that the Bush administration has achieved what it has aimed to do, spreading chaos in the region and creating large fissures and divisions between the individual states and their societies. This is true. However, it failed to carry out its second aim, failing to stay at the helm of the spreading tide of chaos, which, had it maintained control, would have worked for American strategic interests and then on to Israeli interests. It is delusion for anyone to believe for a moment that America came to the defense of freedom and democratic rights in the region, when obvious examples in Palestine and the prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan are found world over, and issues pertaining to the interest of Oil companies and Arms dealers and various other evidence attest to America’s dictatorial nature, its dominance, and its hypocrisy. The last proof is President Bush’s veto of Congress’s bill outlawing the use of torture during interrogations by American intelligence agencies.

Perhaps the most positive thing that the Bush administration has done, albeit unknowingly, is to bring to light its various apparatus, pushing them to play above, not under the table as they have done in the past. This allows the people of the region to differentiate between actions working towards their benefit and those efforts to establish American and Israeli interests.

The entire world, not just the region, is looking forward to the departure of this administration, an administration which has garnered unprecedented aversion from the world’s people, who have suffered in the last years from this administration’s revisions of its reckless policies. These policies have led to frequent tensions in many areas, which in turn threaten global stability. And while these policies may have improved the conditions in some areas, events point to America’s history of violating national sovereignty, its practice of using coercion, and the dependence of its policies on military fear – always under moral pretensions that fool no one.

The reality, understood and accepted, is that no one still trusts the Bush Administration’s peaceful promises. Indeed, how can one think that, with the American green light given to Israel to continue attacks against the Palestinian people, along with Secretary Rice’s declaration that there was no link between the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and ceasing Israeli operations in Gaza?

The Bush Administration is not interested in real peace. All that interests them is to prepare the area for a new war. This policy is a message of war, not a message of peace.