The subtext of US President George W Bush's celebration with Israeli leaders of the Jewish state's 60th anniversary last week, was their mutual embrace of the ghetto.

 

Both countries labour under a burdensome occupation of someone else's land and, in doing so, face relentless opposition from the occupied. Rather than engage and compromise, they huddle behind walls - a literal one, in Israel's case, a virtual one for the world's only superpower.

 

 

 

In response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US in effect quarantines itself from the world by tightening visa restrictions for anyone wanting to visit, study or do business in the country.

 

These restrictions are particularly onerous for Muslim visitors from the Arab world and Iran, and Middle Easterners lucky enough to be issued entry visas are often interrogated, sometimes rudely, at America's international gateways.

 

It is possible that such procedures have kept suspect individuals from entering the US, though America's security commissars rarely comment on this. But the long-term consequences are significant.

 

To begin with, there is education; Arab students now account for four per cent of foreigners pursuing a university degree in the US, down from seven per cent prior to the 9/11 attacks. In 2006, 10 per cent fewer students in the UAE elected to study in the US compared with 2005, while among Omanis the figure was 25 per cent.

 

Jordan, Kuwait and Lebanon posted single-digit declines, continuing a trend that has cost US colleges and universities some US$43 million (Dh157m) a year over the past seven years. America's fortress mentality has been a boon for Australia, where the number of Arab and Iranian students has risen from 2,580 in 2002 to 7,122 in 2006.

 

Tour operators are also taking a hit. Jay Rasulo, the president of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, has estimated America's post-9/11 visa restrictions are costing the US tourism industry about $20 billion per year.

 

At a time when medical tourism is a growth industry among developing economies such as India and the GCC, American hospitals and clinics are scrambling to win back thousands of prospective patients lost to other countries.

 

But the difficulty of obtaining an entry permit, or simply the humiliation to which Muslims are often subjected upon arrival at US airports, means hospitals there are likely to be a hard sell to non-American patients for some time to come.

 

And this is perhaps the most damaging by-product of America's retreat within itself: even for wealthy and respected Middle Easterners, travelling to the US is more trouble than it's worth. America is not just estranging itself from first-time Muslim visitors; it is alienating the same middle-aged professional elite who owe much of their success and prosperity to studying at US institutions and working for US corporations.

 

It is one thing for a US president to neglect or even humiliate a fellow head of state, even a close ally, as President Bush has done in one way or another to everyone from Tony Blair (who wanted British nationals released from Guantánamo), and Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski (who wanted a larger quota of US visas allowed for his citizens).

 

Presidents and prime ministers come and go. But it's something else entirely when US authorities detain the head of a top GCC investment division at a US airport for several hours as he is on his way to negotiate a multi-billion-dollar deal with securities regulators, as they did late last year.

 

Recounting the experience for me recently, the investor, who preferred anonymity, said he now went to the US only when he had to - for business.

 

Lyndon Johnson, another US president and native Texan who became mired in an unpopular and needless conflict, understood the consequences when the respected broadcaster Walter Cronkite turned against White House policies in Vietnam. "If I've lost Cronkite," Johnson said. "I've lost the war."

 

Sadly, the same cannot be said for Bush and the Middle East's moderate, cosmopolitan elite. Rather than appealing to them by adjusting - not "appeasing," as the demagogic right would have it - US Middle East policies in pursuit of a lasting peace in both Palestine and the Gulf, he has sealed himself and his constituents inside a ghetto, an enclave of denial, of his own making.

 

And like diners who no longer visit their favourite restaurant because the cuisine is execrable, a growing number of Middle Easterners are simply taking their business elsewhere. Vive le marché libre.

 

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