Success: Low expectations for Middle East summit

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2007/11/success_low_expectations_for_m.html

Success: Low expectations for Middle East summit

by Mark Silva

The Bush administration could not have set expectations any lower than they are for next week's summit of Middle East and Arab leaders at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.

"If the Bush administration intended to lower expectations ahead of the Middle East peace conference it is hosting in Annapolis... the effort has been a resounding success,'' writes Michael Moran, editor of CFR.org at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Yes, Arab leaders have accepted invitations to attend Tuesday's summit. Yes, Bush will meet invdividually with both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestiniani Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House on the eve of the summit. But no, the White House is not promising "instant results'' from this long-planned meeting.

"In spite of an upbeat assessment from David Welch, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, the ground looks anything but fertile,'' the award-winning Moran writes in his account of The Road to Annapolis.

"Prodded by (Secretary of State Condoleezza) Rice, the primary diplomatic actors—Israel and the Palestinian Authority—spent weeks in a fruitless effort to agree to a joint declaration on a “two-state solution” that Washington hoped would form the foundation of the conference,'' he writes. "In the latest twist, rhetorical outrage swept the Arab world when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insisted the Palestinian side accept the notion of Israel as a Jewish state, as opposed to a multicultural one, as a precondition to any grand bargain.

"On a political level, things are hardly better,'' he adds. "A presidential election year in the United States limits the Bush administration’s options as candidates on both sides vie to be seen as a friend of Israel. Among Palestinians, meanwhile, the week preceding the conference brought new violence in Gaza, the destitute Palestinian appendage seized from President Mahmoud Abbas’ government by the Hamas movement last summer. ''

"We've had our crack republicon propaganda mindf*uck agents set this conference up, so it will look like we care, smirk. But frankly, between me and you, there just ain't much profit in peace for our republicon homelander oil & munitions cronies. So as far as peace and that kind of shit goes, you proles can just shut up and sit down. Smirk."

- Commander AWOL