Bush ends 5-day Middle East trip with few concrete gains

Wrapping up a five-day tour of the Middle East, President Bush on Sunday told his Arab allies that expanding democratic reforms and isolating the "spoilers" — Iran and Syria — were crucial steps to a secure and prosperous future for the region.

Bush spoke at the opening of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East in this Red Sea resort town, where 1,500 policymakers have gathered. More lecture than rallying cry, Bush's speech stuck to familiar themes:

• Iran's nuclear program
  
• more civil liberties
  
• a bigger role for Arab women
  
• free trade
  
• progress on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the end of the year.
  

Bush, however, heads home to Washington with few, if any, concrete gains on his largely ceremonial tour, his second trip to the Middle East in four months. He failed to win Saudi help with rising oil prices and didn't make any breakthroughs on groundwork for a Palestinian state.

So much for all of his tough talk! He did, slam Obama during the trip, admitted as such and then when he and the White House saw this was going to backfire on them quickly changed their story.

He is good at deception isn't he!