Don’t Go
Zev Chafets doesn’t want the president to risk his life by visiting the Middle East:
President Bush is said to be pondering a peacemaking trip to the Middle East. I have two words of advice: Don’t go.Let’s start with the most pressing reason: If Bush gets anywhere near the Middle East right now, there’s an excellent chance that someone will kill him.
Saddam Hussein is still on the loose, armed and dangerous. The deposed Iraqi dictator tried to whack Bush’s father, and he’s got an even better reason to go after the son. Saddam also has several billion dollars in cash. In the Middle East, you can hire an assassin for $50. Saddam can send an army.
Unless somebody beats him to it. Osama Bin Laden’s guys would love to kill Bush. So would Hamas or Islamic Jihad or Yasser Arafat’s Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Not to mention Iran’s Hezbollah proxies or the Egyptian Muslim underground that murdered their nation’s President Anwar Sadat.
Bush is a macho guy. Nobody doubts his personal courage. But this isn’t throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium. Right now, the Middle East is full of men and women who would be honored to martyr themselves in the blood of the Satan from Crawford, Tex.
The trip might be worth the risk if there were any chance that personal diplomacy could accomplish something. But it can’t. A trip to the Middle East right now is a recipe for failure. To see that, all Bush needs to do is take a look at the crowd cheering him on. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is the only one who could plausibly be considered a friend. All the others - French President Jacques Chirac, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the heads of the Arab League and aspiring Democratic candidates - want to see Bush fall flat on his face.
He will, too. Given the state of enmity between Israel and the Arabs, the nature of the international road map for peace and Bush’s own inclinations, failure is inevitable. And it would be Bush’s fault.