Bush's Kiss of
Death
consortiumnews.com
By Robert Parry March 11, 2005
George W. Bush's grab to take credit for a few
democratic openings in the Middle East has endangered the
region's reformers while his two-year-old military
adventure in Iraq continues to founder, a disaster sinking in the
blood of Iraqi citizens and U.S. soldiers.
That grim assessment is, of course, not the imagery favored by
the U.S. news media as it resumes its role of courtier press,
lavishing praise on Bush and his neoconservative advisers as
heroic visionaries leading the Middle East to freedom.
But the American press corps again has gone overboard in its
fawning coverage of Bush, much like it did in 2002-2003 when it
largely fell for his warnings about an imminent threat from
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and the
discovery of no WMD stockpiles, the U.S. intelligence community
came under criticism for a "group-think' that had
succumbed to pressure from the White House to hype the danger
from Iraq. But the U.S. news media has been equally guilty of
"group-think,' both then and now.
Despised Figure
In the latest conventional wisdom about winds of freedom
sweeping the Middle East, both mainstream and conservative
commentators bought into the notion that Arabs were rallying to
Bush's orations about liberty and finally appreciating his
conquest of Iraq. But the reality is that Bush remains one of the
region's most despised figures.
So when Bush rushed to center stage ostensibly to urge on
thousands of Lebanese demonstrators demanding Syrian military
withdrawal – and implicitly to take credit for the
developments – the U.S. news media missed the other story:
that Bush's grandstanding was putting those protesters and
their cause in danger.
One of the results was a backlash that saw pro-Syrian
Hezbollah stage a counter rally of a half million people in
Beirut on March 8, denouncing U.S. intervention in Lebanese
politics and accusing Washington of regional
"terrorism.' This massive outpouring emboldened
Lebanon's parliament to re-elect pro-Syrian Prime Minister
Omar Karami, who had resigned just nine days earlier in face of
the anti-Syrian protests.
The twin developments were a stunning reversal for U.S. policy
in Lebanon, putting the country's political position back
almost where it was when the anti-Syrian protests began following
the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Feb.
14. The heightened tensions also have complicated the United
Nations' strategy for pressuring Syria to withdraw its
remaining 14,000 troops from Lebanon.
Hezbollah, a radical Shiite Muslim party long denounced by the
United States as a terrorist organization, was given a chance to
demonstrate that Syria's military presence, which began in the
1970s during Lebanon's civil war, has the backing of a
significant part of the Lebanese population.
Hezbollah's muscle-flexing also forced another retreat by
Washington. "The United States has basically accepted the
French view, echoed by others in Europe, that with Hezbollah
emerging as such a force in very fractured Lebanon, it is
dangerous to antagonize it right now,' according to a New
York Times article by Steven R. Weisman. [NYT, March 10,
2005]
An alert U.S. press corps might have pounced on the Bush
administration for overplaying its hand, but virtually across the
board the U.S. news media had hailed the pre-March 8 developments
as vindication of Bush's invasion of Iraq and the
neoconservative strategy of using force to smash the Arab
political structure. [See Consortiumnews.com's
"Neocon Amorality' and "Bush's Neocons
Unbridled.']
French Favored
A wiser course for Bush on Lebanon might have been to stay in
the background and let the French take the lead in helping
Lebanon hold free elections this spring. A new study of Middle
Eastern public opinion by the Center for Strategic Studies at the
University of Jordan found that France has a much better image
than the United States and Great Britain, which jointly led the
invasion of Iraq.
The survey of opinions in Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and
Palestine found widespread hostility toward the United States and
Great Britain, which were viewed as "racist,'
"morally decadent' and "imperialistic.'
These opinions were not held about France, which opposed the Iraq
invasion
Rather than viewing the Bush administration as supporting
democracy, large majorities of those questioned disagreed,
condemning the United States as a major human rights violator.
More than 85 percent in Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Palestine called
Bush's war in Iraq an act of terrorism. In Lebanon, that
view was held by 64 percent. [For more on the survey, see Der
Spiegel's online edition, March 9, 2005.]
So it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise that
Bush's attempt to bask in the glory of the Lebanese
protests would have provoked a negative reaction in the Middle
East. When Bush boasted that "clearly and suddenly, the
thaw has begun,' many Arabs immediately grew suspicious
that the anti-Syrian demonstrations were just the latest example
of U.S. manipulation of politics in a Middle Eastern country.
For more than a half century, the region has experienced these
U.S. covert interventions, such as the Iranian coup in 1953
during which CIA officers spread money around the Tehran bazaars
to encourage pro-Shah demonstrations. Middle Easterners also know
how the United States historically has protected the
region's dictators, such as the Saudi royal family, as part
of a Western strategy to ensure a secure supply of oil.
This reality should have given Bush pause before he so
publicly embraced the Lebanese protesters. But Bush
couldn't seem to resist the temptation to present himself
as a modern-day Lawrence of Arabia, the white man bringing
freedom to the Middle East.
Though Bush's high-profile pronouncements gave him a
boost in his political standing at home, his smooch on the cheek
of Lebanon's demonstrators turned out to be a kiss of death
– at least in the short term – for their protest
movement.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the
1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His new book,
Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate
to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also
available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History:
Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'
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