President Bush

  The US is now the only Western nation inhibiting the UN Security Council from delivering a unilateral call for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza. The British have bowed to public opinion, however Washington refuses to bend. If you peruse the US media, you will see the one sided reporting of the issue that [...]

Bush and his administration in the final countdown to departure, still making mistakes and cutting corners on due process. From the British Times newspaper:
“President Bush has been forced into an unprecedented U-turn over a pardon he recommended for a convicted fraudster after it emerged that the conman’s father had given a sizeable donation to [...]

  It appears President Bush wants to go out on a bang…or  at least the potential for one. He is, under the radar, trying to finalize a nuclear technology transfer deal with the United Arab Emirates before he leaves office. Given that the UAE has strong trade links with Iran and is a known territory [...]

If the White House wants to convince us that the Arab nations are united in wanting to halt Iran’s nuclear program, they need a new ’spinmeister” in the chair. The six powerful members of the UN - the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany - wheeled out the usual Arab nations today to [...]

  In a classic case of kettle and pot cross accusations, a Libyan “charity” headed by Gaddafi’s daughter just gave a courage award to the journalist who threw his shoes, a classic Arab insult, at President Bush in Baghdad. Libya, not exactly a paradigm of human rights itself, is voicing the common view of President [...]

President Bush has been touting the rehabilitation of relations with Libya as one of his foreign policy successes. It is a fascinating study in self-delusion, where economic necessity and self-interest take precedence over humanitarian objectives. Bush on one hand, sees it a urgent necessity to topple a strong man in Iraq with a history [...]

  In a ‘whoops, I did it again’ moment, President Bush make another insensitive, crass diplomatic misstatement today at the Saban Forum speech in Washington, DC. On a day when Hebron ’settlers’ shot 2 Palestinians in a reprisal for their eviction from an illegal squat by the Israeli army, with tensions so high on the [...]

  President Bush seems to like to portray himself as he strong man of international relations, but he is being seriously upstaged by Russia at the moment. The Russian Navy undertook naval exercises with the Venezuelan fleet, throwing sand in the face of President Bush who sees Venezuela under Chavez as a rogue state. Putin, [...]

Why is President Bush still making monumental mistakes on the world stage? What is President Bush’s problem with Syria? How undiplomatic can he behave in the final days of his office? Bush reached new lows recently in the arts of diplomacy and in his laughable stature as a statesman. In a recent meeting with [...]

Given the hard line approach to relations with Syria that the Bush Administration is taking, one has to assume they are privy to some pertinent information that nobody else knows. It appears that the US, given any potential forum likes to slam Syria’s actions and intents. This runs contrary to the softening of rhetoric [...]

Past actions tend to have a way of catching up with you. In a case of poetic justice today, the US got served notice that its past intelligence errors in relation to Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, call its current credibility into question. The head inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency bluntly [...]

In a tumbling US economy that seems to have no bottom, there is one export business that seems to be booming - the business of mercenaries. Blackwater Worldwide today announced that it gearing up to offer services to international sea tanker fleets to stem the upturn in piracy. Blackwater is equipping rapid response gun [...]

Many important things happened last night while the Western world slept, and they all have a common thread - the US was not involved in any of them. In Damascus, the British Foreign Minister and the Syrian President agreed to high level intelligence sharing. Syria has excellent intelligence on the insurgents in Iraq which it [...]

  Despite the traditional ‘no substantive action’ mantra during the US Presidential transitional period, President Bush ever the undiplomatic one, made a rash and symbolic gesture of solidarity today. His actions said so much about the lack of international sensitivity that has marred his Presidential tenure. President Bush was in attendance at an interfaith conference organized by the [...]

Most of the international discussion about the legacy of the Bush Administration has focused on foreign policy impact and the loss of America’s ’standing’ in the world. There is, however, a much more concrete economic price to pay - the loss of foreign trade opportunities. Bush pursued his policies on a dual mandate; to spread the concept of US-style democracy to [...]