Global Policy Forum

By George S. Hishmeh

American credibility, a casualty of the US-led war on Iraq and the subject of ridicule overseas, is now being questioned at home by people of all walks of life. As a result, two Senate committees are scheduled to meet shortly to look into whether the Bush administration misused intelligence to make the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and justify a war to depose Saddam Hussein and his regime.

Sen. John Warner, a Republican from Virginia, was quoted in an interview with USA Today on Monday as saying: "People are challenging the credibility of the use of this intelligence, and particularly by the president, the secretaries of state and defence, the CIA director and others."

The nationwide concern was underlined by Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who said his panel and the Senate Intelligence Committee will convene a joint public hearing, probably this month, because of "the depth and seriousness of this issue" -- a clear sign, the paper noted, "that unease over possible manipulation of intelligence has grown in Congress (and that) the administration's future credibility could rest on the (officials') responses."

The point was further stressed when a talk show host noted on nationwide television last Sunday that since the administration's credibility has been marred, the average Americans are unlikely to believe the administration when and if it declares the need for regime change in Tehran because of its alleged possession of nuclear weapons.

The credibility issue gained added attention as the Bush administration shifted its focus towards Iran, with the Pentagon hawks and the pro-Israel neoconservatives advocating regime change in Tehran. Defence Department Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith claimed in an interview that the Iranian regime is "a failure and we have a lot of information that it is widely perceived in Iran as a failure". After saying that President George Bush sympathises "with the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom and for a much better government than they now have", he argued, but without elaboration, that "there may be ways that important changes in Iran can come about without our using the same kind of approach that was required in Iraq".

The Bush administration, to date, does not believe Iran has nuclear weapons, but the State Department has described it as "the most active state sponsor of terrorism" in the world, funding such groups as Hizbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The Bush administration maintains that Tehran could become a nuclear power within five years, according to a scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation, who reported that the CIA says Iran's ballistic missile arsenal is among the largest in the Middle East, and missiles with intercontinental range are on the drawing board.

On the other hand, Gary Hart, a one-time presidential aspirant who recently served as co-chair of the US Commission on National Security/21st Century, had this to say in an opinion piece published in The Boston Globe on June 2: "A president who campaigned on a platform of humility in international dealings and resistance to `nation-building' now finds himself waving a big stick at almost everyone and rebuilding nations right and left. When did this transformation occur? Was it Sept. 11 or was it the project of a handful of advisers perpetually eager to remake the Middle East? ... no one in Washington, including my own Democratic Party, seems to be up to asking any tough questions."

The reassurances that Bush reportedly gave the Group of Eight leaders earlier this week, that the United States had no intention of attacking Iran, is certainly good news, but as already noted earlier by former Senator Hart, "a handful of advisers" could turn the tables upside down.

Take the case of Elliot Abrams, the White House's senior adviser on the Middle East, who accompanied Bush on his just-concluded Mideast trip and subject of an amazingly revealing profile in The Washington Post on May 27.

Abrams, picked for the position by White House National Security Council (NSC) Adviser Condoleezza Rice, was described in the Post by unnamed NSC officials as one who "could always be relied upon to give clear expression of the Israeli line". A self-described neoconservative, Abrams, according to "administration rivals" unidentified by the Post, "worked behind the scenes to rewrite the roadmap on the basis of critiques drawn up by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a leading Jewish American lobby group". "He fired off frequent e-mails to Rice and her deputy Stephen Hadley, trying to reduce the role of international mediators in the peace process."

He and Hadley recently made a secret trip to Israel where Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon took them up "in a helicopter for a bird's-eye view of the Jewish settlements on the West Bank that Israel could be required to abandon under a peace deal with the Palestinians." (President Bush made a similar tour before he ran for the presidency.)

With the American leader's reported reassurances to the G-8 about his non-military intentions towards Iran, or his efforts with Arab leaders and the meeting in Aqaba with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Sharon to push the roadmap to fruition, Bush is seen here in a win-win situation. In the worst-case scenario, Americans may praise him for trying to make amends to the Europeans and solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. But what is worrisome about the American approach is the fact that the more the administration attempts to destabilise Iran the harder it may be for the reformers to gain a foothold in the power struggle under way there or escape accusations of being lackeys of the Americans -- as is the case with the US-supported Iraqi opposition that came in with the invasion.

Similarly, the Bush administration's intentions in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict, as honourable as they may sound, are always suspect in Arab eyes because of the company -- the likes of Abrams -- that Bush keeps. It is high time for the Bush administration to establish direct diplomatic links to these Mideast parties through reestablishment of diplomatic ties with Iran, broken in 1979, and the appointment of a special envoy to oversee the Arab-Israeli negotiations, probably someone like former Senator George Mitchell.