Transcript
Bruce Riedel: I think the first thing I would say about this trip is there is a paradox. Never has the Middle East been as important to Americans as it is today. We have after all two wars underway in the region and somewhere approaching 200,000 American soldiers on the ground in the region. The price of oil reached $100 a barrel right after New Year's, the highest it has ever reached, and three times what it was when the President came into office. Yet I think the President is going to struggle to get on screen in the United States over the next several days as he travels to the region. I thought "The Washington Post" yesterday demonstrated this quite vividly. On page 1 was Iowa, Iowa, Iowa, and buried under the fold on page 2 was the report that the President has an agenda for 2008, and barely even got it into the paper, and I think this trip unfortunately is also going to struggle against Iowa and New Hampshire. But the good news for those of you who are traveling with the President is it really is an extremely important time in the region and there is much going on, and the President has an uphill fight to accomplish his agenda. I do not know what Steve Hadley laid out as the priorities for the trip, but I imagine high on the list had to have been Arab-Israeli issues and particularly moving the Annapolis process forward.
There has been not a whole lot of activity on the peace process since Annapolis. There have been continued meetings, a lot of procedural discussions, but certainly nothing approaching a breakthrough. The settlement issue has once again reared its head with the expansion of settlement activity around Arhoma, with a lot of Arab unhappiness with that. But I think the big issue that remains out there and has remained out there throughout the Annapolis process is the ticking time bomb of Gaza and Hamas.
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