Contempt The Bush Administration example essay topic

What is not compelling is Bush's history of enunciating similarly bold initiatives only to abandon them when political sacrifice is required. It was not so long ago, for example, that the president unveiled his "road map" to peace for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying he was going to put his prestige and authority on the line and use his powers of persuasion to bring about a cessation to the violence. Given Bush's obsequiousness toward Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, most knowledgeable observers rightly doubted the administration's commitment to acting as a fair broker in a notoriously intractable dispute. Within a month, it was evident that the so-called road map led nowhere.

Eloquent words not followed by action create only doubt about the integrity of the speaker. Much of what the administration claimed about the necessity for war with Iraq is now discredited, so it is not surprising that many doubt the president when he issues rhetorical assurances about America's dedication to liberty and democracy. In his speech to the NED, for example, Bush criticized the history of U.S. support for dictatorial regimes in the Middle East. That was good, even surprising. What implications does such an admission have for our current relationship with authoritarian governments such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt?

Little, apparently. Bush issued only the vaguest of reprimands to these "allies", and there were no specific suggestions for how Saudi Arabia or Egypt could be held accountable for making progress toward democracy in the future. Commentators across the Middle East were quick to point to this double standard, and to the hesitancy of the United States to condemn Israeli violations of human rights and liberty. The Bush administration's willingness to coddle an increasingly autocratic Vladimir Putin and to turn a blind eye to Russia's war in Chechnya was also noted. Nor is it possible to forget the contempt the Bush administration had for the UN Security Council.

The president speaks well of democracy in the abstract, but when asked to forge a consensus among real democratic states -- or between political parties in Congress -- he is rather less keen on the democratic virtues of persuasion and compromise. Explaining the politics of oil, Telhami says the U.S. acts as sole guardian of Western energy interests, guaranteeing the flow of oil to energy-hungry Europe and East Asia. Even though America's energy security policy initially focused on denying Soviet power, Washington came to challenge regional hegemony as well -- first Iran in the 1980's and then both Iran and Iraq in the 1990's. This eloquent, yet succinct volume does have its drawbacks. Telhami's attempt to provide a framework to explain "root causes" is, at times, reductionist. "Public despair and humiliation" (p. 14) and "helpless dependence" (p. 63) are not unique to the Arab world.

No one would dispute that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is critical to stabilizing the region, yet Telhami overstates the conflict's centrality and its interconnectedness with terrorism, Iraq, and other problems besetting the Middle East. This may be partly due to his reliance on public opinion data. The Palestine issue, though central to Arab rhetoric and symbolism, is not at the substantive core of the Arab political agenda, as is oil politics and Islamism. Still, Telhami does offer a balanced assessment of the collapse of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and provides a nuanced explanation of the psychology of the conflict (for example, Palestinian victimization and Israeli insecurity).