As Bush Heads to Mideast, Renewed Questions on Iran

Arab dissidents were elated and then devastated when Bush called for democracy in the region in 2005, only to appear to back away after election victories in Iraq and the Palestinian territories by religious blocs -- the only groups that had built popular support under autocratic governments. Bush plans to offer something of a report card on his Middle East "freedom agenda" when he stops in the United Arab Emirates' capital, Abu Dhabi, next week.

In Arab streets, many blame Washington for the plight of Iraqis and Palestinians. Bush's presidency has been "disastrous," said Hisham Kassem, an Egyptian journalist who received a National Endowment for Democracy award from him last fall. "America's neither feared nor loved. It's neither feared by the regimes anymore, and it's hated by the people of the Middle East. . . . That's the Bush legacy."

Complicating matters has been the effort by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, buoyed by soaring oil revenues, to expand Tehran's clout. The United States also sees Iranian meddling in Lebanon and Palestinian affairs through ties to Hezbollah and Hamas. But many Arabs blame U.S. actions for Iran's influence. In Iraq, where the 2003 U.S. invasion led to a Shiite government, "Iran got the best help" possible from Washington, Moussa said.

In December, Ahmadinejad scored a diplomatic trifecta: He spoke before the Gulf Cooperation Council, an Arab bloc formed to counter Iran, in the first such appearance by an Iranian president. He also visited Mecca for the haj religious pilgrimage at the invitation of Saudi King Abdullah, another first for an Iranian president.

Ahmadinejad closed the year by sending envoy Ali Larijani to Egypt, a country that has frozen ties with Iran for 28 years, offering to help Cairo develop nuclear energy. Talk of resuming diplomatic relations followed.

The challenge for Bush, according to analysts in Washington and the Middle East, is to convince Arab countries that their best hope for minimizing the Iranian threat is to stick with the United States -- while dissuading Israel from a unilateral, preemptive strike on Tehran's nuclear facilities.

"The real question is what can the president say or do to reassure them about Iranian power?" said Richard N. Haass, a former senior State Department official and president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Bush's key stop may be in Riyadh, where Bush will hold a rare face-to-face meeting with King Abdullah, who has been alternately critical and supportive of U.S. efforts on Iraq, Israeli-Palestinian talks and the rest of the Middle East. The Saudi royal family, which rules in alliance with hard-line Sunni clerics, is concerned about the spread of Iranian influence and is unhappy with the new Shiite dominance of Iraq.

But Abdullah prefers to co-opt enemies, not confront them, and appears to be seeking a deal with Ahmadinejad, said Bruce Riedel, who worked on Middle East affairs in the Clinton and Bush administrations. "I think there is a great effort on both Riyadh and Washington's part to obscure that because they do not want the public spat," he said.

The senior U.S. official was skeptical, saying that the Saudis do not invite the Iranian president to their meetings -- "he invites himself."

"They are going to have a relationship with Iran," this official said. "Saudi diplomacy is traditionally quite cautious and conservative, but don't mistake caution and conservatism for sympathy."

But some Arabs suspect the Bush administration may decide it has to work with Iran to preserve security gains in Iraq. Khalid al-Dakheel, a political scientist at King Saud University in Riyadh, said "some people here think, or have the jitters, that this administration or the next administration . . . might find themselves in a position to reconcile themselves with the Iranians."

Knickmeyer reported from Cairo. Correspondent Jonathan Finer in Jerusalem contributed to this report.