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Bush May Add Lebanon, Iraq To Stops on Trip
Wall Street Journal,
USA, January 5, 2008
By JOHN D.
MCKINNON
President Bush
takes off Tuesday on a much-anticipated trip to Israel, the
Persian Gulf states and Egypt.
Or is it
Lebanon and Iraq?
With some
details of his mission still conspicuously under wraps,
speculation is growing in Washington that Mr. Bush's
itinerary might include one or more unscheduled stops along
the way.
The official
nine-day itinerary begins in Israel on Wednesday and
continues with the Palestinian stronghold of Ramallah in the
West Bank; Kuwait; Bahrain; the United Arab Emirates,
including Dubai and Abu Dhabi; Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. It
is Mr. Bush's first trip as president to Israel or Saudi
Arabia.
The possible
unannounced stops include Iraq and Lebanon, two of the
places where Mr. Bush has pushed his "freedom agenda" for
the Middle East harder than anywhere. Mr. Bush also has a
longstanding invitation to visit Saudi King Abdullah's farm
near Riyadh.
The White House
was being vague. "I will tell you, partly because of the
holiday...we're still nailing down the specifics of this
trip," National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told
skeptical reporters Thursday.
Think-tank
denizens were buzzing with the possibilities.
"My guess is
the headlines from this trip are going to come from the
unannounced visits," said Jonathan Alterman, head of the
Mideast program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, in a briefing with reporters. "There
are lots of places he could go that you wouldn't
want...announced in advance for security reasons that would
be a big deal. And I think that is part of the bittersweet
irony of this trip: that the two places that the
administration has closest to its heart, Iraq and Lebanon,
are places the president can't announce he's visiting."
It is become
routine for the White House to include stopovers at hotspots
during official travels. On his way to Australia for a
regional summit last year, Mr. Bush made an unannounced stop
in Iraq's Anbar province to showcase progress being made by
the U.S. against al Qaeda. Earlier in the year, Vice
President Dick Cheney used a trip to Australia and Japan as
an excuse to drop by Afghanistan.
Mr. Bush's
Mideast trip has several official purposes. The White House
wants to make progress in negotiations over a future
Palestinian state, which could lead to a peace deal between
the Palestinians and the Israelis. It is also hoping to push
the prospects for a broader Arab-Israeli peace. At the same
time, Mr. Bush wants to reassure allies among the Gulf Arab
states that the U.S. remains committed to safeguarding their
security and stability, as well as to promoting Iraq's
future success and curbing Iran's regional ambitions.
One unofficial
purpose appears to be leaving relations in the troubled
region in the best possible shape for Mr. Bush's successor
while demonstrating to U.S. voters his desire for peace near
the end of his war-torn presidency.
Expectations
are running low. They might be helped if Mr. Bush can win a
concrete agreement by Israel to end expansion of its
settlements in occupied areas.
"I think, more
than anything else, that would send a signal to the Arabs
that the president was serious about pushing the Annapolis
process," said Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution expert
who is a former defense, national security and CIA official.
"Conversely, if there are continued disagreements between
the Israelis and Palestinians on the settlement process,
that could sink the deal right from the start." |
