US Vice President Dick Cheney's upcoming visit to the Middle East is to discuss “issues of mutual interest,” according to the White House on Monday. What, one may wonder, “mutual interests” might Dick have with countries like Saudi Arabia, Oman, Israel, Palestine and Turkey? We know what primary mutual interest these countries have among them: peace and stability in the Middle East. But for Cheney to share such an “interest” with these countries – or any others, for that matter – is doubtful at best. After all, Cheney was one of the architects of the war on Iraq, a major component of the precarious instability in this region. Let's not forget that he got about $400 million from Halliburton, the company that gulped up big chunks of military contracts in Iraq, and which he once was heavily involved in. US President George W. Bush said on Monday that he is sending Cheney over here to “reassure” all parties that the United States wants peace between Israelis and the Palestinians. Bush could've done better on this one, even if no one expects him to. Cheney himself probably isn't really interested in a possible peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis, so he was a poor “reassuring” choice to begin with. Besides, what does Cheney want to reassure us about? Is he here to patch things up after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice managed to reach a rough-cut deal for the Palestinians and Israelis to play nice? What is he going to accomplish, exactly? There is nothing that he can say or do that everyone doesn't know already. Road map? Check. Palestinian state? Check. Back to the negotiating table? Check. Lip service? Most probably. But talking the talk doesn't mean much without walking the walk. He has been here several times before, and the achievements of his visits amounted to virtually nothing. There's no reason to think that it's going to be different this time around. In other news on Monday, Cheney is said to want to push Opec (which means Saudi Arabia) to boost oil production to put a leash on prices. Americans have been hit particularly hard where it really hurts: their wallets. So, Dick is flying half-way around the world to look for solutions to his domestic economics problem. Perhaps if the US government didn't spend so much on a flick in Iraq (a bite of which went into Cheney's Halliburton-size stomach), the problem wouldn't have existed in the first place. __
