In a "nuanced" speech at the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research in Abu Dhabi today, President Bush described Iran as "the world's leading state sponsor of terror" and warned Tehran that the United States is "rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late."

Meanwhile the UN's atomic watchdog said Iran had agreed to clear up questions about its past nuclear activities.

The statement by the IAEA said Tehran would provide details in the next four weeks.

But while the Iranian government, among its numerous other crimes, "seeks to intimidate its neighbors with ballistic missiles and bellicose rhetoric," Bush comforted the assembled dignitaries by reassuring them that "our nations have a weapon more powerful than bombs or bullets. It is the desire for freedom and justice written into our hearts by Almighty God."

Now, it's one thing to hear this kind of rhetoric from, say, a civil rights leader engaged in a difficult struggle against apartheid. But when hearing it from self-described "war president," a lily-white plutocrat who has claimed a divine inspiration for his presidency, the words take on another tone - less about justice and more about imperial arrogance and smug self-righteousness. Perhaps even apocalyptic fanaticism.

As he told James Robinson,

'I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen... I know it won't be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.'

The American people might have done well to consult with Annie Lennox's mother before going into their voting booths in November of 2000, but I suppose it's too late now.

Nor did our apparently divinely-guided leader elect to forgo the amenities in order to issue his clarion call to liberty.

Bush spoke at the Emirates Palace, at an opulent, gold-trimmed hotel where a suite goes for $2,450 a night. Built at a cost of $3 billion, the hotel is a kilometer long from end to end and has a 1.3 kilometer white sand beach -- every grain of it imported from Algeria, according to Steven Pike, a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy here.

Half the audience was dressed in western attire and the other half in Arabic clothes -- white robes and headdresses for men and black abayas, many with jeweled edges, for women.
. . .
Yet he was speaking about democracy in a deeply undemocratic country, the Emirates, where an elite of royal rulers makes virtually all the decisions. Large numbers of foreign resident workers have few legal or human rights, including no right to citizenship and no right to protest working conditions.

Some human rights groups have accused the Emirates of tolerating virtual indentured servitude, where workers from poor countries like Sri Lanka are forced to work to pay off debts to employers, and have their passports seized so they can't leave.

Apparently human rights violations by our friends are not an issue. Tehran might want to take note of that. Oh, wait - it seems they've just forgotten which side to be on. Oh, well.

Perhaps God will sort it all out. Or perhaps that's been the problem.

phrogg

Greenville, SC

August 2005

JAN 13, 2008 10:05 AM

George Bush used the word "bellicose"?? Three cheers for Readers' Digest!