Arab News Editorial

AS the final military preparations were being made to overrun Saddam’s Iraq, George W. Bush and his faithful British ally Tony Blair stood side by side and expressed their dedication to the road map for a peaceful and just settlement in Palestine. They offered the hope the war against Saddam would be coupled with US pressure on Israel to at long last deal honestly and fairly with the Palestinians.

It is now clear that this was yet another lie to stand alongside claims about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam’s involvement in Sep. 11. On Wednesday President Bush tore up the road map once and for all. He hailed Ariel Sharon’s plan to abandon the unmanageable, overcrowded and destitute Gaza Strip and annex key areas of the West Bank as “historic and courageous”. Bush may not be in an intellectual position to realize it, but this latest breach of a solemn promise will have serious implications for the US-led occupation of Iraq. Moderate Iraqi opinion, which once represented a large core of the population to which the Americans were appealing for support, will now despair. Whatever other horrors may lie ahead, it will become plain to them that the Americans can no longer be part of any solution because they cannot be trusted.

The position of the British is no less disturbing. It had been assumed that with their historic association with the Middle East, the British were constantly advising the Americans on which diplomatic knife and fork to use. Though frequently snubbed, not least over Washington’s purblind implementation of an iron-fist policy, London was thought to be urging a more subtle, if not indeed devious, policy line. Yet within hours of Bush’s disavowal of the road map, Premier Blair was echoing the President’s betrayal. At a stroke, the British were robbing their partners in the European Union of a united front to counterbalance the unholy alliance between Washington and Israel. It ought to be clear to Blair that Bush’s Middle East policy is now informed solely by his need to get re-elected. He wants the votes of the Zionists and the fundamentalist Christian right. To get them he has been prepared to destroy the last vestiges of America’s position as an honest broker. Now, in his ultimate volte-face, he will seek to convince the electorate that he did the right thing in Iraq but did not count on the disorganization, selfishness and ingratitude of the Iraqi people.

When in November George W. Bush enters the history books as one of his country’s most inept single-term presidents, he will leave his successor a poisoned legacy in the form of his Middle East policy. Both politically and diplomatically, it will be well-nigh impossible to claw back this momentous concession to expansionist Israel.