Mideast allies express fears over U.S. policies

WASHINGTON — President Bush and his top advisers fanned out across the troubled Middle East over the past week to showcase their diplomatic initiatives to restore strained relationships with traditional allies and forge new ones with leaders in Iraq.

But instead of flaunting stronger ties and steadfast American influence, the president's journey found friends both old and new near a state of panic. Mideast leaders expressed soaring concern over upheavals across the region that the United States helped ignite through its invasion of Iraq and push for democracy — and fear that the Bush administration may make things worse.

President Bush's summit in Jordan with the Iraqi prime minister proved an awkward encounter that deepened doubts about the relationship. Vice President Dick Cheney's stop in Riyadh yielded a blunt warning from Saudi leaders. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip to the West Bank and Israel, intended to build Arab support by showing a new U.S. push for peace, found little to work with.

Visits designed to show the U.S. team was in charge ended, instead, in diplomatic embarrassment and disappointment, with U.S. leaders rebuked and lectured by Arab counterparts. The trips demonstrated that U.S. allies in the region are struggling to understand what to make of the difficult relationship — and to figure whether, with the new Democratic control of Congress, Bush even has control over his nation's Mideast policy.

Arabs are "trying to figure out what the Americans are going to do, and trying develop their own plans," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., one of his party's point men on the Iraq issue. "They're trying to figure out their 'Plan B.' "

The allies' predicament was described by Jordan's King Abdullah II a week ago, before Bush left Washington. Abdullah, one of America's steadiest friends in the region, warned that the Mideast faced the threat of three simultaneous civil wars — in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. And he made clear that the burden of dealing with it rested largely with the United States.

"Something dramatic" needed to come out of Bush's meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to defuse the three-way threat, Abdullah said, because "I don't think we're in a position where we can come back and visit the problem in early 2007."

The only regional leader to voice unqualified support for the Bush administration has been Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has gone so far as to say that the Iraq invasion contributed to regional stability.

To Middle East observers, Bush can no longer speak for the United States as he did before because of the domestic pressure for a course change in Iraq, said Nathan Brown, a specialist on Arab politics at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The Bush-al-Maliki meeting Thursday, closely watched around the world in anticipation of a possible change in U.S. strategy, produced no shift in declared aims. Rather, it resulted in diplomatic stumbles that seemed to belie the leaders' claims that their relationship was intact.

On the eve of the summit, a leaked memo written by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley showed that U.S. officials questioned al-Maliki's abilities. But the memo also was a reminder of dwindling U.S. influence over Iraq. Some of the steps that Hadley said the Iraqis should take, such as providing public services to Sunnis as well as Shiites, are moves that the Americans have demanded for many months, without success.

The leak of the memo cast a shadow over the summit, and al-Maliki abruptly canceled the first scheduled meeting, a conversation among Bush, al-Maliki and Abdullah. White House aides insisted the cancellation was not a snub.

On Saturday, Bush insisted that the relationship between the two was, in fact, improving.

"With each meeting, I'm coming to know him better, and I'm becoming more impressed by his desire to make the difficult choices that will put his country on a better path," Bush said.

During the trip, Bush was unable to distance himself from the fierce debate about Iraq policy back home. In response to news accounts saying that a blue-ribbon study panel on Iraq would urge a gradual withdrawal of combat troops from the region, the president insisted that suggestions for such a "graceful exit" were not realistic.

Despite this, Bush repeated Saturday that he intended to look for a bipartisan solution to the war, and would listen to the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which is scheduled to present its findings Wednesday.

He also said that an internal review from Pentagon and White House officials, among others, was near completion, suggesting that he may be discussing the options before him over the next several days.

Cheney's trip to talk to Saudi King Abdullah was far less visible than Bush's mission, but helped to make clear the gap between U.S. goals and those of its Arab allies.

U.S. officials said Cheney initiated the trip. But foreign diplomats said Saudi leaders sought the visit to express their concern about the region, including fears of a U.S. departure and what they see as excessive American support for the Shiite faction in Iraq.

After the meeting with Cheney, Saudi officials released an unusual statement pointedly highlighting U.S. responsibility for deterioration in the region.

The Saudi officials cited "the direct influence of ... the United States on the issues of the region" and said it was important for U.S. influence "to be in accord with the region's actual condition and its historical equilibrium," an apparent reference to the Sunni-Shiite balance.

The Saudi statement also said the U.S. in the Middle East should "pursue equitable means that contribute to ending its conflicts," pointing to the Israeli-Palestinian strife.

The statement "came pretty close to a rebuke, by Saudi standards," said Charles Freeman, who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia under the first President Bush. "It said, in effect, that the United States needs to behave responsibly."

There have been other signals of Saudi anxiety recently.

On Wednesday, an adviser to the Saudi government wrote in an op-ed article in The Washington Post that if the United States pulled out of Iraq, "massive Saudi intervention" would ensue to protect Sunnis from Shiite militias.

The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al-Faisal, warned in a speech in October against an American drawdown, saying "since the United States came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq uninvited."

Rice encountered the limits of U.S. influence when she visited Jericho and Jerusalem last week, trying to entice Arab confidence by displaying a renewed interest in Israeli-Palestinian peace.

But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was gloomy about the prospects for a deal between his Fatah party and the militant group Hamas that would allow formation of a nonsectarian government and open the way for increased aid and, potentially, peace talks.

Rice said afterward that the administration "cannot create the circumstances" for peace.

"This is the kind of thing that takes time," she said. "You don't expect great leaps forward."

Expressing deeper unhappiness with the United States, leaders from Jordan, Egypt and the Persian Gulf countries told Rice during her trip to an economic-development conference in Jordan on Friday that the U.S. has a responsibility to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which they and many analysts view as the key to regional stability.

Los Angeles Times reporters Doyle McManus and Peter Wallsten contributed to this report.

Israelis, Palestinians

threaten to end truce

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israelis and Palestinians threatened Sunday to scrap a truce that has largely ended five months of Gaza violence, with Palestinian militants insisting it must also apply to the West Bank and Israeli leaders complaining that Gaza rocket squads are still active.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz told his Cabinet that militants in Gaza continued firing rockets into Israel — including one on Sunday — despite the cease-fire.

Israeli officials fear militants are using the truce to rearm with weapons smuggled through tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.

A spokesman for the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad charged that Israel was violating the cease-fire by continuing operations in the West Bank.

— The Associated Press