What happened
President Bush launches a week-long trip to the Middle East on Tuesday that will include an attempt to nurture peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians. Bush will visit Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian territories, the Saudi Kingdom, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Many analysts expect little progress, but Bush said in his weekly radio address that he was “optimistic about the prospects.” (Reuters)
Article continues belowThe Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
It’s good that Bush is going, said Dennis Ross in The New Republic Online. But after “seven years without a peace process” cynicism is rampant. To “restore the faith of the Israeli and Palestinian publics in peace-making,” Bush will have to get “something tangible” out of this trip—like concrete suggestions from each side about what they can do that would “be meaningful to the public of the other side.”
Nobody Bush talks to on this trip will doubt he means business, said Fouad Ajami in The Wall Street Journal. “He is arguably the most consequential leader in the long history of America's encounter with those lands.” In his “stoic response to the burdens after 9/11” and his “battle against jihadism,” Bush has shown that he is a “leader willing to take on great challenges.”