More promises on Palestine, but this time Bush has his reputation on the block

The meetings between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and US President George Bush have yielded the promise of immediate talks on a Palestinian nation between Israel and Palestinian leaders, with a final treaty before the end of next year.

"We meet to lay the foundations for the establishment of a new nation, a democratic Palestinian state that will live side by side with Israel in peace and security," Bush said at a news conference in Annapolis, Md., according to this report in the Los Angeles Times.

Abbas will not be taking a damp squib to his fellow Palestinians back in Palestine. Nor will Hamas be able to say that Abbas was taken down the garden path by Olmert and Bush. The prospects for peace in the Middle East are very real.

Unfortunately the chances that the peace talks may be grounded on one of the myriad disputes surrounding the Middle East issue are still high.

The Annapolis agreement is about deciding to talk and make peace, but did not cover any of the substantive issues that divide Palestinians and Israelis. In this sense it is not a lot different from previous confidence building exercises, mediated by the Americans.

There are the issues of boundaries to be discussed, and fought over both at the negotiating table and on the ground. Will Jerusalem be partitioned or stay with Israel ? What will happen to the Israeli settlements once the new nation is formed ? Will Palestine be allowed to run its own defense ? Will Israel be recognized as a Jewish state or will the Palestinian diaspora demand the right to return ?

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday that he will not back down on his demand that East Jerusalem be named the capital of any future Palestinian state. Nor will he relent on his calls for Israel to dismantle its outposts in the West Bank, he said, according to this report in CNN.

These irksome issues have been pushed under the carpet for the grand-standing this week. For President Bush this is perhaps his last chance as President to prove his statesmanship, and win a Nobel Prize, as some wags put it. For Abbas it could be a matter of his own and Fatah’s survival that the negotiations succeed without him seeing to concede too much. As for the Israelis, they have to start delivering, rather than look for excuses to delay a resolution. There is a lot of hard work, and tough decisions for all three leaders in the days ahead.

After WMDs , Bush is now talking about WW III

“It is not propaganda’s task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success,” said Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda from 1933 to 1945.

The latest we hear from Washington is that the President of the US, the largest superpower, is running scared that Iran will trigger of World War III.

The plot, as hinted by President George Bush, is that Iran, armed with a nuclear bomb, will attack Israel, which by the official line is unarmed and without nuclear capability. By some strange logic known only to Bush, the attack by Iran will spark off WW III.

The corollary to this twisted logic is that of course the US and/or Israel should preempt Iran by attacking the country, or destroying its nuclear capability.

Bush, at a news conference on Wednesday, said, "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

"The President was not making any war plans, and he wasn't making any declarations," White House Press Secretary Dana Perino quickly clarified Thursday. "He was making a point, and the point is that we do not believe - and neither does the international community believe - that Iran should be allowed to pursue nuclear weapons."

Like in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, when the world was mislead into believing that Saddam Hussein had terrible weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Bush and his coterie now intend to convince Americans and the world at large that the best way to protect the world from WW III is by attacking Iran, because one never knows when they will cross the threshold and make a bomb.

Bush’s theory of a belligerent and nuclear-armed Iran potentially leading to WW III is disingenuous and unintelligent. For one, Iran does not have a nuclear bomb. Also, self preservation would ensure that Iran will not use a bomb against Israel or any other country. The country knows it would be pounded by the nations of the free world, including the conventional and nuclear military power of the US.

Iran it looks like is going to get pounded in any case. The battle plans, it appears, are being drawn, and Bush and co. are just building up the hysteria preparatory to an attack, an attack that would unleash death on a whole lot of people in Iran, and spark off a backlash of Shia terrorism. Like in Iraq, George Bush is opening a Pandora’s box, and the whole world will suffer from it.

Unfortunately, what the public of the world think about the current administration’s actions matter little to Bush and coterie. We saw it in the case of Iraq when the US and allies occupied Iraq without a supporting resolution from the UN. This time too it is unlikely the Iran adventure will clear the vetoes of the Russians and the Chinese.

What is more surprising is that the opinion of the country’s people and its Congress seems to matter even less to the US president. As pointed out in my previous posts, by voting on partisan lines, rather than as statesmen and elected representatives of the people, Congress has rendered itself impotent as a countervailing force against a Presidency that seems very much out of control.

In search of an agenda, the Republicans are taking shelter behind Bush’s presidency. The Democrats have stolen the thunder from the Republicans on the Iraq war, on tax policy, and on welfare and other benefits aimed at revitalizing America’s middle class.

If the Republicans in Congress do not distance themselves from Bush now, Iran will be another millstone Bush will have passed on to the Republicans to shoulder.

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Iran President says no need for nuclear bomb

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran, Iran told CBS in an interview, ahead of his visit to the United Nations in New York, that Iran does not need a nuclear bomb.

“Any party who uses national revenues to make a bomb, a nuclear bomb, will make a mistake. Because in political relations right now, the nuclear bomb is of no use,” Ahmadinejad said talking to 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley, through an interpreter in Teheran. “If it was useful, it would have prevented the downfall of the Soviet Union. If it was useful, it would have resolved the problems the Americans have in Iraq,” the Iranian President added.

The US and its allies have maintained that Iran is planning a nuclear bomb, and have even hinted at a pre-emptive strike at the country’s nuclear facilities.

Evidently trying to make a case for US hypocrisy in its position on Iran’s nuclear bombs, Ahmadinejad said, “So can you please tell me why the U.S. government is fabricating these bombs? Do you want to provide a more welfare, happiness to the people through the bomb? Are you going to deal with global poverty? Or do you want to kill people?”.

Neither confirming nor denying that Iran is supplying arms to insurgents in Iraq, a claim made by the US, Ahmadinejad said Iran is worried about “insecurity” inside Iraq, as that could pose a threat to Iran. “We are not interfering in Iraq. The Iraqi people are our friends. And the president, the prime minister, the speaker of the parliament are our friends. We don't need to interfere in Iraq,” the Iranian President said.

Ahmadinejad said the US should pull troops out of Iraq because the people there were opposed to the occupation. “First, they said that they want to topple the dictator and find WMDs [weapons of mass destruction]. They didn't find WMDs and there's no dictator there anymore. So the question is: What are American troops doing right now in Iraq?,” he asked.

The Los Angeles Times meanwhile reports that Ahmadinejad has emerged as a hero for Arabs, and has won admiration even among Sunni nations, for making it a point to defy the US and Israel. Iran is predominantly Shia, and is often accused of undercutting Sunnis in Iraq.

On Israel, Ahmadinejad told CBS that the decision for a two-state solution rests with the Palestinians. “We are saying that you should allow the Palestinian people to participate in a fair and free election and determine their own fate. Whatever decision they take, everyone should go with that,” he added.

The President did not however clarify on the contentious issue of whether Palestinian refugees, that were pushed out when Israel was formed, should also be allowed to vote in the election. The Iranian President has called for "wiping out" Israel, and described the Holocaust - the genocide of Jews during World War II - as a myth.

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