The Bush administration has suffered three serious rebuffs since the Annapolis meeting at the end of November. The most dramatic was the rejection, on Monday, by all 16 of the United States’ intelligence agencies of administration claims that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons.
This rejection was contained in a consensus report called the National Intelligence Estimate. This report, the latest, refutes the 2005 NIE which claimed that Iran was “determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure” and could “produce enough fissile material for a weapon by the end of this decade”. Instead, the 2007 estimate holds that “in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear programme”, that this halt lasted several years, and that Tehran “had not restarted its nuclear weapons programme as of mid-2007”. The estimate also says that Iran is unlikely to produce enough enriched fuel for a weapon before 2010-2015.
This rebuff was delivered by the very agencies which allowed the administration to “cherry-pick”, or tweak, estimates produced during 2002-2003 on Iraq’s alleged and fictitious arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. At that time, the Central Intelligence Agency, a main contributor to the 2007 NIE, was headed by George Tenet, who curried favour to the administration, and arch hawk Donald Rumsfeld was defence secretary. Both promoted war on Iraq. Today less hawkish Mike McConnell is overall director of national intelligence and realist Robert Gates is defence secretary, while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been promoting dialogue with Iran rather than military action.
The NIE may just have tipped the balance of power within the administration to favour the Gates-McConnell-Rice camp over the hardline neoconservative grouping headed by Vice President Dick Cheney who pressed for the redrafting of the NIE report and even called for its suppression.
McConnell took the contrary view that, since 2005 NIE had created a false picture of Iran’s programme and intentions, this report should serve as a correction, however unwelcome to the hardliners who back military action over diplomatic management.
The second rebuff was the demand by Israel, Washington’s best and closest friend on the international scene, that the administration withdraw the draft resolution it submitted to the UN Security Council with the object of bolstering the decision taken at the Annapolis get-together by the Palestinians and Israelis to negotiate in good faith on the creation of a Palestinian state by the end of 2008.
Although this resolution was not placed under Chapter VII and could therefore be enforced if the parties failed to deliver on commitments, Israel did not want the council to be involved in peace making in the region. Israel insists that talks should be at bilateral level and there should be no third party mediation, demands accepted by the administration ahead of the Annapolis meeting.
In addition to scuppering the administration’s attempt to bolster Annapolis with a resolution, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert signalled Israel’s negativism when he said on the day after the conference closed that it is unlikely that a deal can be reached by the end of 2008, that is during the final days of the Bush administration. This means that Bush will have no positive foreign success to its name, and will go down in history as a destructive and damaging president, particularly in the Middle East, where he made war on Iraq but refused to make peace in Palestine.
The third rebuff was by the Arabs, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the European Union, particularly France, over Bush’s policy on Lebanon. This was particularly hurtful and damaging to Bush because the very Arabs who demanded he change his stance are the “moderates” he wants to cultivate; Ban was his man for the top UN job; he expected Europe’s backing; and France not only stood against him but actively worked against Bush’s policy.
For many months he had insisted that the ruling coalition, which has a narrow majority in parliament, should elect its own presidential candidate, thereby deepening the rift with the Hizbollah-led opposition, which was calling for a consensus president. But in the run-up to the Annapolis meeting, Bush came under pressure from the Arabs and Europeans to invite Syria which, apparently, agreed to attend if the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan was mentioned as part of a comprehensive peace package. The Syrians also insisted that Bush relent over the Lebanese presidency. Bush climbed down from his Lebanon high horse and accepted the candidacy of General Michel Suleiman, the current army chief who has the respect of most Lebanese and the approval of the opposition and Syria.
Bush’s defeat on the Lebanese front is a major blow to his policy of trying to isolate and intimidate Iran, which supports Hizbollah as well as the Palestinian Hamas movement and is deeply involved in post-2003 Iraq.
These three rebuffs have humiliated and diminished Bush to a lame, lame duck during this last year in office. He cannot even count on his friends to back him up and must deal with his antagonists by agreeing to accommodations which undermine his standing and stature on the world scene.
It is very likely that he will continue to face rejection and rebuff at every juncture, with respect to each and every initiative he proposes. The world will wait till Bush leaves the White House before it begins to reengage with the US. Until then, the US is itself a lame duck power rather than the hyperpower Bush inherited from Bill Clinton.
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