They're all the same

A few weeks ago, Bush said this:

I believe that a prosperous, democratic Pakistan will be a steadfast partner for America, a peaceful neighbor for India, and a force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world.

-- March 3, 2006

Now there is nothing grammatically wrong with this sentence, but the problem, in my mind, goes deeper that grammar.

Pakistan is not part of the "Arab world*," and so this statement underscores the president's geographical and political ignorance. But I think it goes still deeper. Bush lives in a binary world of black/white -- or more accurately, us/them. (We saw this during the 2004 campaign, where he made it clear that complexity and nuance do not exist for him.) With his with-us-or-against-us attitude, he can completely ignore the complex history and the vast array of different peoples, languages, and religions that make up the Middle East. I do not believe that this statement about Pakistan can be attributed to a "slip of the tongue" or a misstatement. It is evidence of his completely oversimplified view of what the Middle East is all about.

* In the spirit of the oversimplification idea, I offer a pretty good definition from Wikipedia, which is not always the most reliable of sources. But here, it sums up the definition rather well.