TEHRAN -- U.S. President George W. Bush’s tour of the Middle East was a failure, Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said in a sermon at Friday prayers in Tehran.

After the Greater Middle East Initiative and the Annapolis Conference, the United States’ next plan was to rally allies from among the region’s Muslim countries to confront Iran, but it failed, Rafsanjani stated.
Bush wrapped up an eight-day Middle East trip on Wednesday, which began with Israel, that he launched with the goal of convincing Persian Gulf states Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia to support Israel and oppose Iran.
According to all reports, no one responded positively to Bush’s call to establish an anti-Iranian bloc, and most regional countries have declared that they have no problems with the Islamic Republic, the EC chairman noted.
“Following Bush’s appearance in the region, Israel began attacking Gaza again, which is just the opposite to the stated objectives of their Middle East peace plan,” he added.
---------Bush seeking to foment discord in Mideast: Ahmadineajd
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad criticized Bush for ""sowing the seeds of division"" during his recent Middle East visit.
Bush had brought a ""message of confrontation"" during his tour by warning Arab allies that Iran posed a threat, Ahmadinejad said in an interview with Al-Jazeera on Thursday.
Addressing the leaders of the United Arab Emirates on Jan. 13, Bush branded Iran as the “world’s leading state-sponsor of terror”. He said Tehran threatens nations everywhere and that the United States was “rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late.”
The Iranian leader also said Israel ""would not dare"" attack Iran.
""The Zionist regime ... lacks the courage to launch any strike against the Iranian state,"" Ahmadinejad stated.
""They are aware that any strike would be confronted by a very strong Iranian response,"" he said.
""The Zionist entity, with all the support offered by the U.S. administration and many Western administrations, is not lacking new weapons in its arsenal, but I believe ... it will not save it from its doomed collapse.""
--------West criticism of Iran’s nuclear activities “political”
Ahmadinejad described Iran's nuclear program as peaceful, saying that the West’s criticism of Iran’s activities was ""political"".
""The Iranians did not deviate or adopt any unlawful course in its nuclear activities, all of our activities are in line with the international resolutions,"" he said.
""They were transparent and from the very beginning we exerted the maximum cooperation with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency).