President Bush's Middle East blunders.

I read an interesting article today which discusses President Bush's top 5 Middle East mistakes. Paraphrasing, here they are: 1). Bush ignored the Palestinians. Up until the week that Bill Clinton left office in January 2001, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were still trying to work out an ambitious end-of-conflict agreement. When Bush became president, he ended crucial American mediation, repudiated Arafat and backed Sharon, who proceeded to expand Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Arafat died, Hamas appeared, Arab anger flared and mischief-making by Syria escalated. 2). Bush invaded Iraq. After 9/11, Bush became convinced that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons and represented a mortal threat to the West. He also came to believe that ousting Saddam would turn Iraq into a democracy that would become the model for the rest of the Arab world. Saddam turned out not to have nuclear weapons, Iraq turned out to be more prone to civil war than democracy, and of becoming a failed state from which terrorists run global operations. 3). Bush misjudged Iran. Just after Bush became president, Iranians re-elected moderate President Mohammed Khatami, who had reached out to the U.S. and called for a "dialogue of civilizations." Bush not only refused to extend the olive branch cautiously offered by the Clinton Administration, he declared Iran part of an "axis of evil." Khatami, replaced by hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, proceeded to promote Iran's nuclear ambitions and call for Israel to be wiped off the map. Despite Bush's tough talk against Iran, the Iraq war has dramatically expanded Iran's influence in the country and Iran's Lebanese ally, Hizballah, is poised to topple the U.S.-backed Lebanese government. 4). Bush hurt Israel. If protecting Israel had been a key goal of the Administration's policies, it is hard to see how now that Hamas has replaced Arafat. Moreover, Israel's plans to unilaterally redraw its borders and its messy engagement in Gaza also highlight the limits on the deterrent capacity of Israel's military advantages. The spreading instability in the region and the threat of a nuclear Iran are NOT in Israel's long-term interests. 5). Bush alienated Muslims. It was an honest misstep, but when Bush promised to wage a "crusade" against al-Qaeda after September 11th, he effectively equated his war on terrorism with an earlier Christian invasion of the Middle East that remains etched in the collective memory of Muslims. Since then, the Bush Administration's involvement in or perceived support of military campaigns against Iraqis, Palestinians and Lebanese heightened Muslim anger at the U.S. and undermined the political position of moderate, pro-American Arabs, including old U.S. allies like Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia — and, of course, King Abdullah II of Jordan, the host of Bush's Middle East visit this week.
And so it goes.