Less than ten days after celebrating our own 'rockets red glare,' the Middle East is about to go up in flames. Israel and Lebanon are hurling rockets at each other - testing one another's strength and resolve. Syria is contemplating its response. Iran will fuel the flames from the sidelines, for now, waiting for the right moment to jump in. Iraq deteriorates further every day, along with Afghanistan. It feels like we're on the eve of destruction, like the wild fires that burn in the Canadian west, they are quelled only to ignite again elsewhere in the heat of summer, in the arid climate that has been stripped of civility.
For how long will the Saudis be able to restrain themselves? And the Egyptians? Saudi Arabia and Egypt have their own homegrown problems with keeping a lid on terrorism and fundamentalist opposition to their tenuous rule. Will Saudi Arabia also devolve into a certainly uncivil civil war? Will Egypt go next as it tries desperately to play traffic cop at the Suez Canal? And what happens to the price of oil?
All this while Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel break bread and eat roast pig. The irony couldn't be more startling. As the two leaders of the West toast each other's health and answer brief softball questions, the Washington Post reports that Bush keeps his focus on the roast. "A few minutes later -- after discussing Iran, the Middle East, the merits of press freedoms in Russia and progress on the Doha round of free trade talks -- Bush returned to the boar." The only sound heard above the clicks of the cameras flashing for photo ops is the hollow bang of silence in the face of impending disaster.
The security in Germany for this Bush visit is tighter than that for the World Cup, and more costly (over 12 million euros, more than 12,000 police). Anti-war, anti-Bush demonstrations are being limited, miles from anywhere that Bush will set foot. In order to provide adequate security for the President, the whole village has been converted to a Green Zone for the day: blockades and security fences surround the town, businesses must close for the day, all windows must remain shut, cars must be removed from the area, and all drains in the town are plugged. A curfew is in effect for the residents from 9:30 a.m. until an hour after Bush has left. This is the kind of security detail that surrounded Hitler in his peak of power. This is what we have become.
Tomorrow is Bastille Day. Bush and Merkel dine on boar. The message is: let them eat cake.
Even German babies cried when Clueless George
kissed them, in photo-ops aimed at the world press
![President Bush holds 7-month-old Lane Garrett Christenson before departing Vance Air Force Base, Saturday, May 6, 2006, in Enid, Okla. Bush spoke earlier in the morning during a commencement ceremony at Oklahoma State University. (AP Photo/ Haraz N. Ghanbari)]()
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Bush, Merkel slice into roast pig at German barbecue
By Steve Holland
Reuters, July 13, 2006; 2:11 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/13/AR2006071300965.html
TRINWILLERSHAGEN, Germany (Reuters) - President Bush put Middle East tension, violence in Iraq and Iran's nuclear program behind him on Thursday to feast on a wild boar roasting on a spit.
"Laura and I come from Texas," Bush told his host German Chancellor Angela Merkel on a warm summer evening. "One of the greatest compliments you can pay a guest is to have a barbecue."
The barbecue was a much-anticipated highlight of Bush's visit to Merkel's political home base in northeastern Germany, a grilling he had been looking forward to all day.
Merkel greeted Bush wearing faded blue jeans as the U.S. president and his wife, Laura, arrived in the tiny Baltic town north of Berlin aboard the Marine One helicopter.
They walked past a red-coated band playing a medley of songs like "Hooray for the Red, White and Blue," and Bush plucked the conductor's wand from his hand and led the band for a few notes.
Then he and Merkel posed for pictures with the band as its members played on, Bush startling a woman playing a flute by poking her on the shoulder.
Nearby, three creatures were turning slowly over flaming beds of coals, one of them a wild boar hunted down by restaurant owner Olaf Micheel.
After both leaders spoke to the crowd, Bush said: "Thanks for having us. Let's go eat."
Someone handed Bush a long knife and fork and as he prepared to pierce the meat, members of another band lifted their horns and began to play on cue.
Bush cut several slices from the shoulder and Merkel did the same from a haunch, and the eating began.
At a joint news conference with Merkel earlier in Stralsund, Bush kept mentioning a wild boar, slaughtered and roasted the traditional way, that he planned to share at the dinner.
"I'm looking forward to the feast you're going to have tonight. I understand I may have the honor of slicing the pig," Bush told Merkel.
A few minutes later -- after discussing Iran, the Middle East, the merits of press freedoms in Russia and progress on the Doha round of free trade talks -- Bush returned to the boar.
"Thank you for having me," he told Merkel. "Looking forward to that pig tonight."
Bush answered a few more questions but kept coming back to the boar for a third, then a fourth time.
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Bush the [Helpless] Bystander
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
July 13, 2006; 1:32 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/07/13/BL2006071300903_pf.html
The Middle East is exploding and what is President Bush doing about it? Not much.
Here's the transcript of this morning's joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in which Bush sounded more like a bystander on the world stage than the leader of its only superpower.
Other than definitively supporting Israel's right to defend itself, Bush was more timid and wishful than assertive. He spoke in unusually deferential terms about collaborating with other world leaders and pretty much ruled out military action against Iran. His comments about the current situation in Israel suggested a highly unrealistic notion of how well things were going there up until now, and a naiveté about the effect Israel's actions may have on Lebanon's embryonic democratic government.
Stopping off in Germany on his way to the G-8 summit in Russia, Bush reserved his greatest enthusiasm for tonight's pig roast -- technically, a wild-boar barbecue -- bringing it up three times. "I'm looking forward to that pig tonight," he gushed.
Describing the message he expects his fellow summiteers to deliver to Iran on abandoning its nuclear weapons program Bush said, almost whining: "We're not kidding."
One reporter asked Bush about Russian President Vladimir Putin, who yesterday mocked Vice President Cheney by likening Cheney's recent criticisms of Russia to his accidental shooting of a hunting buddy in February. Bush's reaction? He just giggled. "It was pretty clever. Actually, quite humorous -- not to dis my friend, the Vice President."
The president who for many years took pride in never deferring to other countries on matters of national security described his talks with Merkel today as "more than a discussion, it's really a strategy session, is the way I'd like to describe it. . . . It's an interesting conversation, you know, when you toss out what may seem to be a problem that's insoluble, and all of a sudden, two people start thinking about how to solve it, solve the problem. And that's what we're doing."
And the president who used to say he never takes options off the table seemed to be doing just that when it came to Iran: "There's no question that this issue can be solved diplomatically" he said.
His analysis of the Israeli peace process was at best odd. "We were headed toward the road map, things looked positive, and terrorists stepped up," he said.
Things looked positive? And the road map was alive and well? Not even close. As Greg Myre noted in the New York Times last month, "the internationally backed peace plan known as the road map . . . stalled almost immediately after it was introduced three years ago."
On Iran, Bush acknowledged his inability to say anything definitive: "Your question really is, how fast should the process move along? And my attitude is, the answer to that is, it should move as fast as necessary to make it effective, which is a non-answer, admittedly. But the truth of the matter is, diplomacy takes a lot of work, and there are different interests involved here."
And on Lebanon, Bush embraced what sounds like an improbable goal. "Whatever Israel does, though, should not weaken the Siniora government in Lebanon," he said. "We're concerned about the fragile democracy in Lebanon."
But you've got to think that Israel's bombing of the Beirut airport and blockade of Lebanese ports and airspace doesn't exactly strengthen Premier Fouad Siniora's hand.
Here's an exchange toward the end of the session:
"Q Does it concern you that the Beirut airport has been bombed? And do you see a risk of triggering a wider war?
"And on Iran, they've, so far, refused to respond. Is it now past the deadline, or do they still have more time to respond?
"PRESIDENT BUSH: I thought you were going to ask me about the pig.
"Q I'm curious about that, too. (Laughter.)
"PRESIDENT BUSH: The pig? I'll tell you tomorrow after I eat it."
