McClatchy: Middle East already planning for Bush's departure

Heckuva job, dimson.


Middle East already planning for Bush's departure
By Mark Seibel | McClatchy Newspapers


GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — One recent Friday morning, Dr. Eyad Sarraj, a Palestinian human-rights activist, offered this assessment of what the future holds for the Gaza Strip now that the Islamist group Hamas has taken control:

"For two years, Gaza will suffer even more," said Sarraj, a British-trained psychiatrist who founded Gaza's mental-health system. Then, he said, President Bush and his advisers will be gone. A new U.S. administration will talk to Hamas, and so will the Israelis.

"They'll have to," he said, "because they'll have seen that Hamas can deliver."

That calculus — that the end of the Bush administration is approaching and things will be different afterward — now underpins political thought throughout much of the Middle East.

With 17 months to go in Bush's second term, political leaders in the region are anticipating his departure and preparing for change.

It's no surprise that Bush is unpopular in much of the world.

Even in the United States, his approval ratings have been low all year.

A series of interviews in the Middle East, however, found a startling level of disappointment, disdain and distrust, even among people who, like Sarraj, profess to be friends of the United States or have strong ties to America.

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Iran is to keep the pot stirred, keep the chaos forced in the ME in the future, even if the neocons are no longer in power--their goals will still be accomplished. In other words, set the stage by further destabilization, keep our military permanently embroiled, and watch the Democrats have to deal with the region (or world)-wide disaster (Lord knows they're not counting on the dipshits they have running on the GOP side to win). The oil prices will go up into the stratosphere ($$$$), China, Russia and India will make hostile moves, Israel will have to be defended, we'll have to push back against our new threats, terrorism will explode into a way of life, and the neocons/Repubs and military-industrial complex will flourish, even if the rest of us are in a world of hurt. And then the Repubs can take back the WH in 2012 or 2016, stronger than ever.

they are going to build a pipeline to do it, and Karzai is also praising Iran, so I don't buy the nuke Iran
talk.

another country getting their hands on that black gold.

they are more likely to relate to and want to work with Iran than us.

will be embraced by the world. If he gets thrown out of office before 2009 this will happen sooner.