The Bush administration's "Broad Middle East and North Africa Initiative" will have a rocky start in the G8 summit meeting that begins Tuesday, according to an editorial in Outlook Weekly magazine. An excerpt follows.

The G8 summit is scheduled to issue a declaration supporting "democratic changes" in the Middle East, kicking off Washington's Middle East initiative.

As host of the summit meeting, US President George W. Bush has invited several Arab and Muslim state leaders to attend the meeting.

However, some heavyweight players in the region, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia have spurned the meeting, citing opposition to Washington's reform plan.

They pointed out that Washington's Middle East initiative will not be feasible unless it begins to write their concerns into the plan while taking into account their unique cultures, traditions and religious values.

They are also outraged by the idea of forcing Western-style democracy upon the region without heeding the reality of the situation there.

The continued Israel-Palestine conflict has cast more doubt on Washington's sincerity in its initiative.

The Middle East initiative, worked out against the backdrop of the war in Iraq, is still heavily overshadowed by the instability there.

The latest prisoner abuse scandal of US troops in Iraq has greatly damaged the image of the United States as the world's self-proclaimed champion of human rights and democracy, discrediting its call for more democracy and human rights in the Middle East.

Under such circumstances, the Bush administration's initiative to turn the Middle East, depicted by the administration as a hotbed for extremism and terrorism, into a so-called stable, democratic and free region is set to be fraught with obstacles from the very beginning.

(China Daily June 8, 2004)