Vice President Dick Cheney is in town, and he’s hunting…for solutions:
Vice President Dick Cheney sought Saudi help on Saturday in dealing with Iraq’s spiraling violence and other regional trouble spots where U.S. policy is on the line: Iran, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
Cheney’s visit with King Abdullah was brief, lasting only a few hours before he flew back to Washington, but it underlined the two allies’ concerns over upheavals across the Middle East, which many Arabs blame on U.S. policies.
In a sign of the urgency of the U.S. concern, President Bush is scheduled to meet with Iraq’s prime minister in the Jordanian capital Wednesday and Thursday to discuss security matters.
The U.S., in other words, is nearly in diplomatic crisis-mode, but this time a crisis largely of its own inept policy formulation and execution. MORE:
The unusual succession of visits by the two U.S. leaders was planned before outbursts of violence this week dramatically worsened the situation in two countries of key American interest — Iraq and Lebanon.
But there are “wheels within wheels” in the ongoing talks:
Before the meeting, a Saudi official said Cheney was expected to ask oil-rich Saudi Arabia to use its considerable influence with Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority to promote reconciliation with Iraqi Shiites and Kurds. Sunni insurgents have staged some of the bloodiest attacks on U.S. troops and Shiites.
In return, Saudi Arabia wants the U.S. to help rein in Iraq’s Shiite militias, which have been blamed for sectarian attacks that have killed thousands, said the official, who agreed to discuss the meeting only if not quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the talks.
On Lebanon, the Saudi official said the kingdom wants to ensure there are no cracks in support for the U.S.-backed government, which is opposed by groups allied with Syria and Iran. Saudi Arabia has strong links to the anti-Syrian bloc dominating Lebanon’s Cabinet and parliament.
The official said Saudi Arabia hopes Washington will not snub any Palestinian government that emerges from talks between the militants of Hamas and the more moderate Fatah faction. The U.S. and other nations have shunned the current government led by Hamas, which has refused to recognize Israel and renounce violence against the Jewish state.
They’re also worried about a possible U.S. confrontation with Iran. If you have to boil it down, it comes down to this: the Bush administration’s foreign policy has proven to be a military and diplomatic mess.
Can Jim Baker & Co in the Iraq Study Group offer some solutions to begin to sort it out? And will GWB accept them, or pay lip service to them and then water them down? Stay tuned………
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.