Bush Aims Mideast Pitch at G-8

Fresh from a long weekend in Europe to mend transatlantic ties, President Bush today launches a new effort on another daunting diplomatic challenge: cultivating peace, democracy and human rights in the Middle East.

Bush’s forum at this posh resort off the Georgia coast is the Group of 8 conference, the 30th annual economic summit of the world’s leading industrial countries.

The meeting’s official agenda includes items such as debt relief and trade promotion and fighting AIDS and global famine. But as this year’s host, Bush has chosen to put the Middle East and the war on terrorism on the front burner.

The president arrived here late Sunday night after visiting Rome, Paris and France’s Normandy region, places where he met with an array of world leaders, including Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. On Sunday, Bush took part in ceremonies in Normandy marking the 60th anniversary of the D-day invasion.

Even as the president stayed out of sight Monday at one of the many multimillion-dollar mansions in this exclusive enclave, his aides continued hammering out a declaration calling for democratic change in the Middle East, a statement that Bush hopes the world leaders will endorse.

The president’s proposal has faced a tough road, in part because of the enmity the Iraq war has incited in the Arab world. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Morocco turned down Bush’s invitation to attend this week’s gathering. But the administration has downplayed their absence.

“I mean, President Mubarak was just in the United States, and the king of Morocco is about to come to the United States,” a senior administration official who is involved in the process said Monday.

A draft of the proposed declaration began circulating months ago. It immediately alienated some Arab leaders, who let the administration know any such document must call for greater efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

National security advisor Condoleezza Rice said the absence of some key Arab leaders would not deter Bush’s initiative. “You can expect the G-8 leaders this week to agree to take new actions to promote freedom, democracy and prosperity in the broader Middle East,” Rice told reporters.

She also noted that, at Bush’s invitation, the leaders of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Jordan, Tunisia, Turkey and Yemen will come to meet with the group here, mostly to discuss his initiative. Iraq’s new interim president, Ghazi Ajil Yawer, is expected Wednesday as a last-minute invitee.

In addition, the leaders of Algeria, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Nigeria and Uganda are to attend this year’s gathering.

The Group of 8 is made up of the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and Russia.

The G-8 leaders also are expected to declare their support for stepped-up efforts to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, strengthen international cooperation in the U.S.-declared war on terror, expand global peacekeeping efforts and redouble the campaigns to alleviate poverty and combat AIDS.

The actions they are expected to take include extending the debt relief program for the poorest nations, due to expire at the end of this year, and endorsing a U.S. proposal to train 75,000 new peacekeepers over the next five years to deal with conflicts in such regions as Africa. In addition, the leaders are expected to commit themselves to improving airline passenger screening and the sharing of threat information among international law enforcement agencies.

Despite the broad array of items on the agenda, the administration has made it clear that the president’s top priority here is approval of his Middle East initiative. Even First Lady Laura Bush, who typically promotes noncontroversial causes such as reading, plans to hold a round-table discussion here this week of how her husband’s proposal relates to women.

Rice said the president’s desire to promote democracy, freedom and human rights in the greater Middle East -- not just Iraq -- is based on his conviction the U.S. was wrong for too long in believing that “stability could be bought at the expense of freedom and liberty.” Instead, she added, “what we bought was extremism.”

Bush’s antidote, Rice said, “is to have a spirit of liberty and freedom and to allow people the ability to pursue their hopes and aspirations.”