Failures Mounting

In the series of talks that the cretin in chief has been giving, a legacy is indeed mounting. The unreal aspect that the talks have shown, in attributing disastrous unilateral war on Iraq to errors by the intelligence community, and now his talk about Middle Eastern diplomacy, are sadly indicative of the whole mindset that has destroyed U.S. relationships throughout the world.

Speaking last night at Saban Forum, a Middle East policy forum, once again the occupier of the White House showed his resounding ignorance about interests other than his own.

"When Saddam's regime fell, we refused to take the easy option and install a friendly strongman in his place," Bush said.

"Even though it required enormous sacrifice, we stood by the Iraqi people as they elected their own leaders and built a young democracy."

'Progress' made

Bush, the first sitting US president to call for an independent Palestinian state, defended his approach to ending the six-decade conflict despite the lack of any concrete progress from US-backed negotiations.

"On the most vexing problem in the region - the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - there is now greater international consensus than at any point in recent memory," he said.

Palestinians are likely to be sceptical about the progress Bush has made [AFP]
Bush called the two-state approach "one of the highest priorities of my presidency," and described talks at a US-sponsored November 2007 conference in Annapolis, Maryland, as "determined and substantial".

"While the Israelis and Palestinians have not yet produced an agreement, they have made important progress," he said.

Hillary Mann, a former Bush administration foreign policy official, told Al Jazeera that her experience of working with the US leader on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was different.

"When I worked for him, before we came up with the roadmap agreement of 2001-2003 ... he didn't think you needed a roadmap, he thought a speech was all you needed," he said.

"But reality doesn't work that way and that has been Bush's biggest enemy - reality."
(snip)
Equally critical of Bush's comments was Abdullah Schleifer, a political analyst from the American University in Cairo. Speaking to Al Jazeera, he said: "It is as if he has reverted to type ... he talked about Syria and Iran in the same old context of 'you are not with us, you are against us'.

"There was no reference to negotiations. The whole role of diplomacy and negotiations is on the backburner as far as President Bush is concerned."

Just as the worst administration ever refused to negotiate with U.S. representatives in Congress, it failed to see that interests other than its own were in play abroad. There is no history that can fail to acknowledge that America was set back at home and abroad by the past eight years. America's recent election showed that reality has broken through in our national consciousness, and it has long been obvious that world leaders despaired of rational behavior from the exiting White House we have to endure for 45 more days.

The years from 2001 to 2008 should provide an intensive study for the wrong way to conduct foreign affairs.