President Bush is in the United Arab Emirates and heads next to Saudi Arabia. Both states are allies of the U.S., but that comes with some caveats. Part of the trip is aimed at reenergizing Mideast peace talks and keeping pressure on Iran.
RENEE MONTAGNE, Host: And Michele, we'll just start with you. Yesterday, the president gave a lecture on democracy in Abu Dhabi, but Iran seems to have been the main focus of his talk. Yesterday, he called Iran the world's leading state sponsor of terror.</s>P: Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere. So the United States is strengthening our longstanding security commitments with our friends in the Gulf and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, Host: And what response does the president hope to get from rhetoric that's anti-Iran?</s>MICHELE KELEMEN: Well, the president - he's said a lot these things before, but it was doing it here, so close to Iran, that was to send a signal that he's still worried about Iran and he wants this region to pay attention to it.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, Host: How important is the United Arab Emirates to the U.S. strategy against Iran?</s>MICHELE KELEMEN: Dubai also is - it's interesting because this is also sort of a listening post for the State Department on Iran. They've beefed up the embassy here to have more Iran experts because there's such a big, not only trade, but a lot of Iranians who live here.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, Host: And turning to you, Ivan, you've been spending time talking to folks there in the Emirates, you know, on the street. What's their response both officially and unofficially to the idea that Iran is a threat?</s>IVAN WATSON: Well, Renee, I think that officials in the UAE will be, to some degree, reassured. They tell me, in confidence, that they are worried about Iran. One UAE official says that he believes, in fact, that Iran is working on a nuclear program. But at the same time, they blame the Bush administration's policies and what they say are mistakes in the region for setting up a situation that Iran has capitalized on, as one political analyst I talked to put it. He said that President Bush was only half-right in his speech yesterday. He was correct in assessing the Iranian threat to small, wealthy Arab oil kingdoms like the United Arab Emirates, but he said that that threat is the product of America's mishandling of the region over the past seven years.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, Host: Generally, what is the response to President Bush's visit?</s>IVAN WATSON: Well, he's pretty unpopular here among Emiraties, even though...</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, Host: Although it's not traditionally anti-U.S. there.</s>IVAN WATSON: And in addition to that, though, the rulers have unrolled the red carpet. They've showed President Bush everything from tents out in the desert to prize hunting falcons to a future community that's supposed to be carbon-free. And they have declared this a national holiday in Dubai. They've stopped all traffic in and out of that city as a security precaution, and that has prompted some residents to make the somewhat tongue-and-cheek congratulation to each other, Happy Bush Day - an example of local Emirate humor.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, Host: That was NPR's Ivan Watson and Michele Kelemen, both speaking to us from the United Arab Emirates.