Middle East: A military option?

As President Bush's tour of the Middle East continues, its central theme takes shape: presenting Iran as a threat to the region.

Canada's National Post reported on Monday that despite the fact that U.S. military commanders and strategists aren't keen on attacking Iran, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., who was in Israel for Bush's visit, said that the military option is still on the table.

The paper also reported that the main reason for Bush's visit to the region "was to gauge how much diplomatic support and practical help the desert sheikdoms might give if the United States or Israel attacked Iran." The trouble with Bush's anti-Iran rhetoric is that it doesn't hold water with Arab states. As Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland, pointed out in a Sunday interview on NPR's "All Things Considered," most Arabs don't see Iran as a major threat.

He mentioned that polls done in the region asking which two countries were seen as threats to Arab states indicate that 80 percent said they viewed Israel and the U.S. as the greatest threats. Only 10 percent mentioned Iran.

Telhami believes it's the American, not the Arab public to whom Bush is targeting his message.

If Bush is serious about wanting peace in the Middle East, he needs to stop banging the war drums during his visit.

Continuing to do so is a distraction from his stated mission of helping facilitate the peaceful creation of neighboring Palestinian and Israeli states and further damages his -- and this country's -- credibility.