Bush Touts Mideast Legacy

Little action follows rhetoric on historic trip

(NEWSER) - President Bush will wrap up his tour of the Middle East tomorrow with a quick visit to Egypt, then fly home from his eight-day vision having collected plenty of promises but little in the way of actual results, the AP reports. Bush used the visit to woo Arab support for the Israeli peace process and to help counteract Iran. More»

US military prepares to remove equipment from Iraq

(NEWSER) - As the US military reduces its presence in Iraq, it faces the logistical challenge of moving all the equipment it brought to the country during the nearly six-year war effort, the Los Angeles Times reports. Unlike personnel, much of the equipment used in Iraq will remain in the region, stored in huge warehouses in Kuwait and Qatar in case the military needs it again. More»

Can the Jews have a room at this hotel?

(NEWSER) - The bloody scene playing out in Gaza is painful, but “all too familiar,” writes Thomas Friedman of the New York Times: It’s “a mini-version of three great struggles that have been playing out since 1948.” Those struggles:

• Who Owns This Hotel? Who’s the Mideast superpower? Is it Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Or ascendant Iran, which can "stop and start the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at will" through Hamas and Hezbollah?

Ex-prime minister optimistic but doesn't regret Iraq war

(NEWSER) - Tony Blair was both Britain's Barack Obama, promising change, and its George W. Bush, dragging his country into an unpopular war, Jennifer Senior writes in New York. But now the Middle East envoy and superstar Yale lecturer is his own man. He's excited about Obama's victory and urges the president-elect to "find an agenda that is capable of unifying the world." More»

Shoe-throwing a signal of intense contempt in Arab world

(NEWSER) - President Bush never quite got the book thrown at him for invading Iraq, but the next closest thing happened today, CBS News reports. A correspondent for a Cairo-based Iraqi TV station hurled a pair of shoes at the outgoing president during a press conference in Baghdad, shouting, “This is a farewell kiss, dog,” Bloomberg reports. More»