Cairo: George Bush gets his lipstick

Let's not forget that President Bush, and Condi Rice, also went to the Middle East and made lofty speeches about freedom and about how the U.S. was not in conflict with Islam. It was not the rhetoric that failed them; it was the disconnect between the rhetoric and the policies.(...) What he says in Cairo will make little difference to the way he's perceived in the Arab world and beyond; he'll be judged by what he does. Tony KaronSpeaking about a policy of pursuing a war against extremism and working towards two states for peoples on Palestinian lands is no different from the policy of his predecessor, George W Bush. Ayman Taha, Hamas spokesman in the Gaza strip - BBC
Arabs are waiting for pressure to be exerted on Israel so it can stop its violations in Gaza and the West Bank. Iraqi government spokesman - BBC
"The United States is in a weaker position now," said Omar Amiralai, a well-known 65-year-old Syrian film maker. "They are stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan and don't know how to get out. Bush, after the Iraq war, had some ability to pressure Sharon on Israeli settlements, but I don't see that the United States has the ability to impose its law or desires on Israel now." New York Times
The immediate effect though is to buy America space and time. Daniel Levy - TPM
I ask the question because the stated objective, the Palestinian state, if it ever gets off the ground, will be nothing more than a huge concentration camp with no sovereignty over its borders or air space, with the most trusted inmates being allowed to run the day to day affairs of the prison, keep order among the prisoners, keep their jailers well informed of the other prisoner's doings and presumably to skim the cream off the "state's" budget for their pains.
This, of course is essentially repackaged Rice/Bush.













