How much Arab angst does President Bush confront on his farewell tour of the Middle East? Judging from this op-ed article from Al-Seyassah, the leading newspaper of Kuwait which is the President’s next stop – the moment he leaves the friendly embrace of Israel, things are likely to be touch and go at best.
“What has the United States achieved in Iraq except handing it and its people on a golden platter to the savage wolves of Tehran and its Revolutionary Guard, which today is the biggest player not only in Iraq but throughout the Middle East? George Bush’s farewell visit is the beginning of the last chapter of the greatest American failure in history.”
By Dawood Al-Basri
Translated By James Jacobson and Nicolas Dagher
January 6, 2007
Kuwait – Al-Seyassah – Original Article (Arabic)
In the autumn of his stormy presidency, American George W. Bush will now offer more of his well-known Texan diplomacy on a farewell visit to the Arab region. The reason that his announced itinerary includes most Middle East nations without any mention of Iraq is clear: The cause of his rushed, secretive visit, hidden from the eyes, voices and ears of journalists and whistle-blowers, is that they would ask him whether it’s reasonable for this “agent of change” to visit without touring his project to build the American dream in Iraq, the foundations of which have collapsed. They would ask how he could come without looking at the Iraq disaster, which was caused by the ulterior motives of American policy in the hands of Bush.
[Editor’s Note: President Bush’s itinerary includes Israel, the West Bank, Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.]Bush decided to lower the curtain on Saddam Hussein’s regime, but to what end? What have his terribly naive policies accomplished except to replace an old, wild agent – and also a costumer [Saddam] – with slightly more receptive agents? Five years after the war of “liberation” and fall of Saddam, practices of brutality have yet to be abandoned. Has a new Iraq really emerged from the disastrous embargos and ashes of war? Have American policies succeeded in creating more civilized, liberal and democratic groups in Iraq? Or has the sick, sectarian mentality of the tribe been replaced by another kind of diseased mentality – that of the terrorist. This has only served to raise the level of crime and cruelty – the perpetrators of which are far more capable of stealing and draining resources than their wicked predecessors – the ones who prepared the nation and region for the disaster that later befell Iraq?
Has America really achieved victory by returning Iraq to a pre-Ottoman situation, where there were clans, sects, parties of sheep, backward tribes, groups of flagellating zealots, gangs who kill women in groups or individually, al-Qaeda lowlifes and retarded criminal Salafist groups?
What has the United States achieved in Iraq except handing Iraq and its people on a golden platter to the savage wolves of the Tehran regime and its Revolutionary Guard, which today is the biggest player not only in Iraq but throughout the Middle East?
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