Opinion Editorials, November 2003, www.aljazeerah.info
Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine
Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people
Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
Cities, localities, and tourist attractions
Bush’s Britain Visit
Arab News
23 November 2003
The state visit of President George W. Bush to Britain at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II was like no other that the British monarch has hosted. There was very little of the spectacular pageantry that the British do so well, such as rides through London in open-topped carriages, for the simple reason that the president’s security men were not prepared to let their chief take such a risk.
Thus most of Bush’s time was spent behind a deep security cordon, far from all but a few carefully vetted Britons. All he may have seen of a reported 110,000 demonstrators who gathered in London on Thursday to protest his invasion of Iraq was on the TV screen in his bedroom at Buckingham Palace.
This sense of isolation and perhaps being under siege will also have pervaded talks with Premier Tony Blair about what can be done next in Iraq. Though the British claim to have had some influence on White House Iraqi policy — for instance persuading the president to at least pay lip service to a role for the United Nations and its Security Council — there is little evidence that the US administration has taken much notice of other advice from London.
In Britain, Bush might have repaid his faithful ally Blair by using his London trip to announce categorically that the US will abandon its steel tariffs, now declared illegal by the World Trade Organization. Or he could have made a definitive move on Palestine, rather than producing another vague criticism of the wall the Israelis are building. Bush might even have compromised over the treatment of prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, at least the nine British detainees. All these Blair has been begging him for.
But the president did none of these things. Indeed, had it not been for the horrific bomb attacks in Istanbul, which gave the two leaders the high-profile chance to solemnly recommit their countries to the war against international terror, this might have been a state visit in which nothing of substance took place at all.
What the Bush White House wanted was a glittering event at the start of the president’s yearlong campaign for re-election. Tony Blair is thought of far more highly in the United States than in his own country over Iraq.
Thus being seen back home to visit with his faithful friend will do the Bush campaign no harm at all.
While Bush has thus undoubtedly gained, it would appear that Blair has got little out of the visit except a huge security bill and the chance to be seen once more as the US’ most loyal ally. It must be hoped that now he is safely back home, the president at least remembers to send a postcard saying thank you.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03). |
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