Bush

By
Max J. Castro                                                                  Read Spanish Version

majcastro@gmail.com

If
one were to map the foreign policy of the Western nations, the
greatest distance between the United States and its allies would come
on two issues: Cuba and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the
European Union and other industrialized democracies exercise some
nuance in their policies when it comes to Cuba and the Middle East,
the United States has followed a Manichean logic: unconditional
support for Israel, unremitting hostility toward Cuba.

As
we begin a new year, the failure of these policies could not be more
obvious. The forces that came to power in Cuba in 1959 have just
celebrated fifty years of the Revolution; half a world away, the
Palestinians and Israelis engage in yet one more bloody and unequal
war.

U.S.
policy in the Cuba and the Middle East has never accomplished its
objectives of regime change on the island and a Middle East that is
safe both for Israel and for U.S. oil interests. Yet no
administration has followed a Manichean script as consistently and
fiercely as has Bush.

On
Cuba, in the face of five decades of a failed strategy of economic
strangulation and diplomatic isolation of Cuba, the Bush
administration responded by further tightening the screws. Surprise:
It didn’t work. Not even the retirement of Fidel Castro and the
mellowing of Cuban American attitudes have persuaded the Bush
administration to change course. As a result, what Bush has
accomplished is to further isolate the United States on the issue of
Cuba as the increasingly lopsided UN votes against the United States
embargo have demonstrated.

As
much pain as the Bush administration’s policy of enhanced isolation
and strangulation have inflicted on the Cuban people, the
consequences of the Bush doctrine for the populations of Iraq,
Lebanon, and Palestine have been much more deadly.

The
elective war in Iraq alone has resulted in the deaths of more than a
hundred thousand Iraqis and the displacement of four million. Yet, as
much outrage as the war in Iraq has wrought in the whole world,
nothing has inflamed Arab public opinion as much as the Bush
administration’s role as enabler of Israel’s aggressive military
actions in Lebanon in 2006 and now in Gaza. In both cases, the entire
world clamored for an early cease fire to stop the carnage of
innocent civilians. In both cases, the United States stood ready to
veto a resolution, supported by all the other permanent members of
the UN Security Council, calling for a cease fire. Whatever the
Israeli political leaders think they can accomplish by looking tough
on the eve of an election, there are a number of things they have
already achieved: strengthening Arab radicals, exposing moderates as
powerless, and ratcheting up anger toward their country and its
patron, the United States.

Some
leaders are beloved both at home and abroad. Think of Nelson Mandela.
Some leaders are popular at home but not abroad. Ronald Reagan comes
to mind. Some leaders are admired abroad and despised at home, for
instance, Mikhail Gorbachev. The Bush administration, however, has
proven toxic both to the American public and to the people of the
entire world.

Now,
Bush is bequeathing his successor and the American people one final
gift: a deepening of the hatred for the United States among the Arab
and Muslim masses. What could they be thinking, in Pakistan,
Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere as they watch on their
television screens the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza — including
civilians, women, and children — by an Israeli military heavily
supplied by the American taxpayer and diplomatically backstopped by
the United States? Somewhere, the leaders of Al Qaeda and other
Islamist extremist groups are smiling.