Bush rhetoric hard to square with facts

WASHINGTON - President Bush promised a diplomatic offensive to win support for Iraq from Middle Eastern countries that, if anything, have become more hostile to U.S. policy in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's execution.

In doses of rhetoric hard to square with facts in the region, Bush portrayed the ordinary people of the Middle East as being behind U.S. goals in Iraq, in his speech to the nation Wednesday night.

And he declared the need to address Iran's and Syria's support for insurgents, without acknowledging his refusal to engage either country diplomatically, as many U.S. allies and the Iraq Study Group proposed.

The war that toppled Saddam Hussein's Sunni-run regime has rekindled the centuries-old divide between Sunni and Shiite Muslims through Middle East, suspicions that have grown stronger since Saddam's Dec. 30 execution.

Bush, who often invoked the Iraqi leader and his "evil mind" in the past, ignored him in the speech.

In Saudi Arabia, the religious establishment — rooted in the hard-line Wahhabi stream of Sunni Islam — has stepped up its anti-Shiite rhetoric. Last month, about 30 clerics called on Sunnis around the Middle East to support their brethren in Iraq against Shiites and praised the insurgency.

Despite such vitriol, Bush said that from " Afghanistan to Lebanon to the Palestinian Territories, millions of ordinary people" are asking: "Will America withdraw and yield the future of that country to the extremists or will we stand with the Iraqis who have made the choice for freedom?"