The G-8 summit starting today in St. Petersburg is not going to be a cozy event in which the leaders of the world’s richest nations relax and get to know each other better. Indeed it is likely to be one of the most challenging meetings of recent years, because of a series of subtle changes in power balances. Unfortunately one reality remains unchanged: Israel’s aggressive policies in the Middle East continue to enjoy the backing of the United States, whose diplomats block any UN censures while Washington administers the mildest of rebukes. This policy has however never been more dangerous than now. Israel’s disproportionate and bloody response to the capture of three of its soldiers will compound the problem of persuading Iran to abide by its international nuclear obligations. Israel meanwhile will want to ensure that it remains the only Middle East state with nuclear weapons. The possibility is very real that in its current violent mood Israel could decide to take out one or more of Iran’s four nuclear sites in the same way that it attacked Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981.
Washington has been angry that Russia and China have blocked Security Council resolutions that would have ensured a far tougher stance against Iran. Though — is an administration that seems inherently incapable of seeing anyone else’s point of view, it may possibly have dawned on President Bush that Moscow and Beijing and even on occasions the Europeans, are just as angry every time Washington shields Israel from resolute condemnation by the international community.
With Israel out of control, attacking another sovereign country while inflicting illegal communal punishment on the luckless Palestinians of Gaza, George Bush has some questions to answer from the other G-8 heads of state. Likewise, a week ago Bush had been planning to wag his finger at President Vladimir Putin over Russia’s deteriorating democratic record and shrinking press freedom. Western style representative democracy for everyone is one of the Bush administration’s ‘Big Ideas’. But it’s acceptable only when the democratic process returns governments that are acceptable to the United States. The Palestinian and Lebanese governments can be ignored because the electors there chose among people connected with what Washington considers terrorism. It seems entirely lost on the brightest minds in the Bush White House that if they ignore people with radical backgrounds when these people decide to try embracing democracy, then it makes it inevitable that they will return to extremism. There is no point in fighting terror if you have no intention of seizing the opportunity to take peace when peace presents itself.
It will probably also escape the Bush’s notice that as Israel rampages once more through the territory of weaker neighbors, the price of oil is heading toward $80 a barrel. This entirely suits President Putin and his vision of Russia as an “energy superpower”. It gives him the ability not only to bully his foreign customers as he did the Ukraine last year but also to entirely ignore whatever Bush has to say.
