Home pagePress CenterIn the Media Jon Alterman, director of the CSIS Middle East Program, was quoted by CBSNews.com, "Bush's Last-Chance Trip to the Middle East."
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Jon Alterman, director of the CSIS Middle East Program, was quoted by CBSNews.com, "Bush's Last-Chance Trip to the Middle East."
Why not go to the Middle East now? Will there be a better time in the coming year? Perhaps, but probably not. And certainly not if President George W. Bush doesn’t show some progress on this trip. So, now very well may be the best time to go to the region which has every indication of dominating Mr. Bush’s last year in office.
Keeping the forward movement gained last November at Annapolis between Israelis and Palestinians will dominate the first few days of the president's 8-day trip. The parties have been meeting feverishly in recent days so they can have something positive to show when the president has his meetings in Israel and the West Bank. It’s typical of the diplomacy between the two sides that if they are able to agree on next steps it will likely happen only at the last minute, just before Air Force One lands.
“President Bush is no longer trying to transform the Middle East from afar; he’s trying to manage it in incremental ways by arm-twisting and jawboning leaders in intimate, private sessions,” says Jon Alterman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Read the article
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions; accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in these publications should be understood to be solely those of the authors.
