Israelis will welcome U.S. President George Bush

ISRAEL

Jerusalem Post, Jan. 8: Israelis will welcome U.S. President George Bush ... with the sincere warmth due a great friend of this nation. More than any other world leader, Bush understands and sympathizes with our predicament at a fundamental level. Similarly, Bush would be right to feel that Israelis understand what drives him more than many Americans.

At the same time, this visit is overshadowed by undeniable tinges of sadness, desperation and even a feeling of betrayal. The first visit as president of such a great friend should be a tremendous. occasion, yet it is serving as a tragic reminder of how skewed American policy has become, and how far the messenger seems to have strayed from his message.

It was President Bush, after all, in the days and weeks after 9/11, who launched a revolution in American foreign policy. Put simply, the Bush Doctrine was: if you support terrorists, you are a terrorist. Within a relatively short time, this doctrine was put into practice in Afghanistan and Iraq, where American-led might toppled terrorist regimes. Through its actions, America had demonstrated that state support for terrorism — especially when combined with the pursuit of nuclear weapons — would be confronted and could lead to regime change.

Message received

Perhaps without meaning to, the recent U.S. National Intelligence Estimate revealed how dramatically Iran got the message: in 2003 it stopped the part of its secret program dedicated to actually building a nuclear weapon. At about the same time, Libya revealed its secret nuclear program, and pledged to dismantle it and forswear terrorism.

But then came the counterrevolution. While the U.S. was busy trying to help Iraqis recover from Saddam’s brutal rule and build a democracy, Iran was busy sowing terror and mayhem, not only in Iraq, but in Lebanon and Gaza. And instead of working systematically to counter the billions Iran was spending to make Iraq ungovernable, the U.S. did almost nothing to combat Iran’s proxies until much later, when it was almost too late.

Finally, the U.S. figured out how to turn things around in Iraq and has been making progress over the last few months. But as Bush himself taught us, this will be for naught if all the forces the U.S. has been fighting - Hamas, Hizbullah, and al-Qaida - suddenly enjoy the tail wind that a nuclear Iran could provide. The forces of jihad, which were on the run in 2003, could be chasing the U.S. by 2009.

BRITAIN

The Times, London, Jan. 9: President Bush arrives in Israel today at the start of one of the longest, most challenging and potentially most significant overseas tours of his presidency. He will be brought face to face with four of the issues that have dominated much of his time in office: the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Iraq, stability in the Gulf and the threat posed by Iran to regional security.

It is a little unfortunate, therefore, that the White House has planned the trip the wrong way round. It would have been better, and politically more productive, to have begun in the Gulf before arriving in Israel and the Palestinian territories. ... Indeed, Mr. Bush arrives at a time when the security situation is tenser than it has been for months. The Israeli Government is under strong pressure to respond to the barrage of rocket attacks from Gaza with new airstrikes or a full-scale military incursion. New rocket attacks across the Lebanon border threaten to re-ignite conflict in the north. And a recent Israeli raid into Nablus has inflamed tensions on the West Bank.

Warm welcome

By contrast, Mr. Bush will receive a warm welcome in the Gulf, where he will hold talks with four governments that count themselves as staunch US allies, eager to cement ties with important, if largely symbolic, visits. In Kuwait, Mr. Bush will be able to give reassurance that US policy in Iraq remains steadfast, that the level of violence, despite recent suicide bombings, is well below the level before the surge and that Sunni-Shia tensions can be contained.

In Bahrain he will tell a nervous government that the Sixth Fleet is robustly ready to respond to new Iranian provocations. And in Saudi Arabia, his first visit should go a long way to defusing the suspicions and misunderstandings that have clouded a strategic relationship for the past six years.

It would have been useful to have brought such support from the Gulf states to the talks in Israel and the Palestinian territories. But even if Mr. Bush’s first visit does not produce a breakthrough, it signals a new and highly welcome White House determination to seek peace between the enemies in the Middle East.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Gulf News, Dubai, Jan. 9: Strange this. On the eve of the first visit by the U.S. President George W. Bush to Israel “an incident” has occurred between the U.S. Navy and Iranian speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz. According to the U.S. Navy, five small boats thought to be from the Revolutionary Guards passed in front of three U.S. vessels, dropping boxes in the water to force them to take evasive action.

The fact that the boats are believed to be from the Revolutionary Guards is significant. The Revolutionary Guards were designated a terror organization by Bush last year, allowing for military action to be taken against them without going for Congressional approval.

The ‘incident’

At the very least, the “incident” helps Bush set an agenda for his trip that puts the focus on Iran rather than on feeble U.S. efforts to rein in Israel or push for what Bush himself has set a timetable for - a Palestinian state by the end of this year.

Relations between the U.S. and Iran have been fraught in recent years, with Washington voicing concern over Iran’s alleged nuclear program and the alleged role of the Revolutionary Guards in fomenting unrest in neighboring Iraq.

The Strait of Hormuz is a flashpoint where a small event can suddenly become an international incident and the limited progress that has been made will be washed away in a tide of escalating rhetoric. Iran and the U.S. must set up channels of communication and not leave their relationship hostage to “incidents.”

JAPAN

Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, Jan. 8: The New Year brought a fresh round of turmoil to the world’s markets for oil, stocks, currencies and gold. The market upheavals appear to portend a stormy year ahead. What is the outlook for the Japanese economy in 2008?

One negative development that started last summer is the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgages. The problem of surging defaults on these loans for low-income homebuyers has grown into a credit crisis in the United States and Europe, roiling financial and currency markets around the world. How severe a blow will the subprime meltdown deliver to the U.S. economy? Will the crisis also hurt the economies of fast-growing countries like China and India by depressing their exports to the United States? Uncertainty about the future of the economy is growing.

Temporary workers

The yen’s upturn against the dollar is beginning to make a dent in the foreign exchange profits of exporters. ... What must be done to buoy the consumer side of the economy? ... Companies should also pay attention to the fortune of non-regular employees, such as temporary workers. Management should try to improve their working conditions and make them permanent employees for long-term strength of the work force. In order to set the stage for renewed growth, Japanese companies now need to reform themselves by using more of the money they spend on factories for the development of human resources.