Backstage at the Crisis - Newseek

[liberal N proud]

Newsweeks smiling pic of bu$h while Israel attacks Lebanon:


Spining the lack of action from the bu$h regime...

July 31, 2006 issue - The forward suite aboard Air Force One is a hushed and dimly lit space, a private sanctuary where the president can sleep, exercise and lead the free world from 30,000 feet. At the start of an eight-hour flight en route to Germany and a world summit in Russia, President Bush is deep inside his own head as he paces up and down the long hallway that leads from his study to his conference room. While Washington was sleeping the night before, yet another corner of the Middle East had erupted into violence, after Hizbullah launched a deadly ambush on an Israeli patrol. The summit, which was supposed to focus on Iran's nukes and Russia's democracy, had just been hijacked by the war on terror.

Bush may deplore the loss of life, but he also sees the crisis as an extraordinary opportunity. "I view this as the forces of instability probing weakness. I think they're testing resolve in many ways," he tells NEWSWEEK

That afternoon the leaders are promised they will see the final text of their statement on the Middle East, which calls on Hizbullah to end its rocket attacks and then urges Israel to end its military strikes. But the document fails to arrive at the promised hour of 4, and it's still not there at 5 o'clock. Bush has had it. "I'm going home," he says to the room full of presidents and prime ministers. "I'm going to get a shower. I'm just about meeting'd out." Some of the leaders suggest they should all work out their differences together. But Bush can no longer keep up appearances. "I thought that was a lousy idea and so did others," Bush says later. "It would lose focus and everybody would then have an opinion."

Blair steps in to calm things down. "Let me see if I can work it out," he assures Bush, and he disappears into a side room with Putin. Condi Rice and Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, join them. As it turns out, one final bit of haggling stands between Bush and his shower: a reference to both the terrorists and "those" who support them. Bush had hoped for a mention of Iran and Syria, but didn't want to block the agreement. The president is exasperated by all the hours of dickering over the obvious. "Everyone knows who is supporting Hizbullah," he says later.

Showered and rested, Bush sits in his conference room on Air Force One, clearly glad to be heading home. A large bowl of popcorn sits in front of him, and he proceeds to demolish it by the fistful, stopping only to sip some Diet Coke. Bush is in a philosophical mood, pleased with the summit and his handling of the crisis. There has been some progress on trade, solid agreement on North Korea and Iran, and a strong statement on the Middle East.

But as the crisis in Lebanon deepens, Bush's allies and critics question the depth of his commitment to diplomacy. Is he really embracing the United Nations or using the slow diplomatic process to buy more time for Israeli forces to destroy Hizbullah? Will the support he has rallied among moderate Arab states survive another week of Israeli airstrikes? In his own mind, he's simply doing what much of the world has long urged him to do: build a coalition. "What you're seeing is a foreign policy that works with friends and allies to solve problems," he tells NEWSWEEK. "It takes a while for a problem to occur and it takes a while to solve a problem." It took a while for Bush to learn that language. He has a little while longer to put it to work.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13988981/site/newsweek/