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Bush gets thumbs down in the Middle East

Apart from the usual cheer-leading suspects [take John Howard as one of the few] the"surge" announced by George Bush has attracted an almost univeral negative response if not downright condemnation. Americans don't seem to be buying the message - and why should they? - and in Europe they are far from supporting Bush in where he is headed.

And what about in the Middle East? The LA Times, under the banner "Mideast shaking its head" reports:

"In ordering more American troops into Iraq, President Bush said he was sending a message of hope to millions of Arabs and Afghans trapped in violence. But to many on the ground in the Mideast, the speech spoke volumes of a gaping disconnect between high-flown U.S. promises and a deadly, turbulent reality.

After long years of war and political disillusionment, Bush would have been hard-pressed to come up with any message that would please the Arab world. Analysts say public opinion of the United States has sunk to an unprecedented low, with no end in sight to the bloodletting in Iraq or the Palestinian territories.

Many here, long mired in bloodshed and sinking deeper into sectarian tensions, hold America squarely to blame for both."

Meanwhile the NY Times reports that the reaction to the Bush announcement has been tepid at best if not complete resentment:

"Iraq’s Shiite-led government offered only a grudging endorsement on Thursday of President Bush’s proposal to deploy more than 20,000 additional troops in an effort to curb sectarian violence and regain control of Baghdad. The tepid response immediately raised questions about whether the government would make a good-faith effort to prosecute the new war plan."

The signs are ominous indeed that whatever Bush and his cohorts - like Cheney and Condy - might have thought they were planning to pursue has any prospects of succeeding.

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