• ATROT_P1
• csmli-1
• stem-1

• ATROT_P2
• csmli-2
• stem-2

To burnish legacy, Bush goes abroad

The president is planning a heavy travel schedule in '08, to promote his foreign-policy successes.

from the December 27, 2007 edition

Page 2 of 2

Page 1 | 2

While the White House describes the visits to Israel and the Palestinian territories as a "follow-up" to the meeting Bush hosted in Annapolis, Md, in November to relaunch negotiations toward a two-state solution, few experts expect Bush to venture much beyond extolling efforts for peace.

It's one thing to envision a two-state solution, says Stephen Cohen, national scholar at the Israel Policy Forum, but it's quite another to pressure the leaders of the two sides for concrete steps and to delve into the intricacies of something like Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands.

"I do not foresee George Bush going to that level of complexity," Mr. Cohen says. "It's more likely the trip is designed to gain the kudos of what he's already done, rather than to try to do something new."

But it is perhaps the sub-Saharan Africa trip that is the most anticipated by the president for the opportunity it offers both to highlight some of his less-publicized interests and to signal action he wants to see pursued no matter who is the next US president. Some White House officials say Bush is particularly proud of his administration's increases in AIDS funding and redirection of foreign assistance into millennium challenge grants that reward good governance.

"Africa is probably the one area where Bush has got less credit than he deserves," says Georgetown's Kupchan. "He has substantially increased American assistance to Africa" – for everything from AIDS programs and malaria eradication to education and agricultural development – "despite hailing from a party that historically has been highly hostile to foreign aid."

Bush's Africa trip will highlight as much as anything else how America's perception of foreign assistance has shifted under Bush – both in the wake of 9/11 and with the rise of the Evangelical Right within the Republican Party, he says.

"The turn within the president's party toward support for foreign aid is really a product of 9/11, and a realization of the link between failing states and terrorism," Kupchan says. "This sense that the collapse of state structures and political chaos could eventually threaten the US helped build support within the administration for a major increase in foreign aid – and that in turn segues nicely into support in the Evangelical community for helping the people of Africa."

Perhaps the most controversial trip of Bush's travel year will be the one he makes to the Summer Olympics in Beijing in August. No US president has ever attended the Olympics held in a non-US venue, and this "first" can be expected to generate increasing noise as summer approaches. Already, "Free Tibet" and "Save Darfur" activists are calling on Bush to rethink what they see would be a publicity coup for the Games-hosting Chinese government.

But for Bush, attending the Olympics as president is a once-dashed hope he probably figures he can afford to make come true in his last year in office. In the summer of 2004, in the heat of a reelection bid, word spread that Bush wanted to attend a surprise medal-level soccer match featuring the team of the post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

The uproar at home was such that the plans were called off, but in 2008 Bush won't be faced with such political considerations.

1 | Page 2