The
Logic Behind Rice's Grin
By Ramzy Baroud
14 October, 2006
Countercurrents.org
In
its struggle for the regional order it wants, the US is reaching new
lows in its deceitful and disingenuous stance towards the Palestinians.
Commencing 3 October, US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice journeyed between various Arab capitals,
conferred with Arab leaders, then shuttled between Israeli and Palestinian
officials, before eventually joining a few of her counterparts in London,
6 October, in a six-nation conference aimed at fanning the flames of
hostility against Iran.
Rice, the most faithful foreign
policy ambassador of the Bush administration, even before her taking
over the State Department, seems hell-bent on reining in Iran, ensuring
the failure of the Hamas government, and restructuring the political
landscape of Lebanon in a way that would deny Hizbullah the opportunity
to capitalise on its astounding military achievements.
One can easily dismiss Rice's
attempts as futile, indeed self-defeating. The logic is simple: Rice
represents all that is insidious about the Bush regime, one of the most
loathed US administrations in the modern history of the Middle East,
if not the world. Her visits to the region, despite the official fanfare
that often awaits her at Arab capitals, coupled with her disagreeable
and untimely grins, are often associated with her government's disastrous
foreign policy, political plots and anti-democratic efforts.
Nonetheless, Rice is intelligent
enough to deduce such a conclusion. All she has to do is look at caricatures
of her in daily newspapers; the gap between her front teeth matures
into a dark abyss, her insolent attitude and inconsiderate expectations
all turn the former academician into the region's fiend, one that is
strongly associated with political instability and disorder.
The fact is, Rice couldn't
care less about Arab public opinion, nor any other public opinion for
that matter. Her definition of democratic transformation hardly resembles
the people's collective desire. She simply stands at odds with the people's
aspirations for greater freedom and change, and undoubtedly she knows
it.
Her declaration, following
Israel's devastating war on Lebanon in July 2006, that time had arrived
for a "New Middle East", and her full backing of the Israeli
military adventure, earned her "enemy of the people" status
that towers far beyond that of former secretary of state Madeline Albright.
Rice's incessant attempts
to chastise and sanction Iran -- while leaving all other options open
-- for allegedly striving to obtain nuclear capabilities for the purpose
of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction while turning a blind eye
to Israel's full-functioning mass killing capabilities, made her but
another double-faced foreign policy hypocrite.
Even her promise, made during
her 4 October joint press conference with Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas, that the US will "redouble" its efforts to
help starving Palestinians, was quickly snubbed by Palestinian media
and by a mass rally held in Gaza two days after her visit to the West
Bank. Palestinians understand well that the purpose of her visit was
to support President Abbas's disgruntled faction, Fatah, against Hamas,
now the ruling party. In the span of three days prior to her visit,
10 Palestinians were killed in clashes between the two groups. Fatah
continues to infuse chaos, rendering the government inoperative and
paving the way for a presidential decree to abolish it, while Hamas
is fighting to retain control of what it perceives rightfully as its
political achievement resulting from the democratic choice of the Palestinian
people during the January elections.
The greatest irony in Rice's
visit is that it cemented anti- democratic forces in the region. The
democratization of the Middle East seemed, at least for a few months,
the Bush administration's winning ticket out of Iraq. It was the only
possible pretence that would relieve the administration of its failure
to uncover Iraq's non-existing weapons of mass destruction. That delusion
quickly vanished when Hamas came to power, riding the same democracy
wave stirred by the Americans, and opening up the horizon for aspiring
Arab opposition groups, Islamic or any other, to push against once seemingly
immovable Arab regimes and their entrenched elites and patrons.
Now Rice is back, pushing
to abort the same democratic process that her boss alleged to champion.
Recall that in his Middle East "vision" speech of 24 June
2002, President Bush considered free and fair elections in the Palestinian
territories as key to the success of what was later termed the roadmap
peace initiative.
Rice's problems are much
greater than that of her personal image and chances of likeability.
The Israeli military failure in Lebanon had ruled out, at least for
a while longer, the desire of her government's warmongers, the pro-Israeli
lobby in Washington and the Israeli government to challenge Iran militarily.
That setback has empowered both Syria and Iran to challenge the Bush
administration more candidly than ever, with Iran calling the American
bluff regarding war.
For now, the core of the
American Middle East battle is focused on Palestine. If Palestinian
democracy prevails, withstanding intense Israel-American-Palestinian
pressure, then US foreign policy will suffer its greatest loss yet,
whose outcome will reverberate across the region. The Palestinian democratic
experience thus must fail, even if the price is politically backing
embattled President Abbas and his fractious followers, equally desperate
not to lose this decisive battle against Hamas.
Rice's visit to the region
was neither intended to "reinvigorate" the peace process nor
to support the voice of "moderation" in the region. It was
meant to ensure the fortitude of her allies and secure and extend the
collective punishment of the Palestinian people until they repent and
throw out their democratically elected government, a scenario that was
tried with success in Nicaragua in the 1970s, though at a very high
price.
Unfortunately, the Palestinian
president and his henchmen, joined by various Arab governments and European
states, are in unison with Rice's iniquitous objectives, thus giving
her good reason to mendaciously grin.
Ramzy Baroud’s
latest book: The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s
Struggle (Pluto Press, London) is now available on Amazon.com.
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