A November deadline for Mideast peace

A November deadline for Mideast peace
By Roger Cohen
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: August 29, 2007


WASHINGTON: The sources of global frustration with the Bush administration have been many and varied, but its refusal over several years to bring serious attention to the Israel-Palestine conflict has ranked high. To dream some path led from Baghdad to Jerusalem was always upside-down foolishness.

So President George W. Bush's discovery last month that "Iraq is not the only pivotal matter in the Middle East" was encouraging, as was his virtual abandonment of the turgid negotiating formula known as the "road map." The Bush end game, like Clinton's, is going to see a push for a resolution of the mother of all conflicts.

The upper echelons of the State Department are suddenly full of talk of "a supreme effort" for Israeli-Palestinian peace. The bold convocation of a conference in the United States in November demonstrates that an empty focus on the incremental has been replaced by a thrust for the finish line: Palestinian statehood next year, or at least a detailed framework for that state.

Is this just a hopeless lunge for the history books from a lame-duck administration undone by Iraq? Bush, his swagger gone, is weak. Ehud Olmert, the unpopular Israeli prime minister, may be even weaker. The Palestinians are split, the region radicalized by Iran rising and Iraq fissuring.

But low expectations can be a diplomat's ally. It may seem foolish to speak of exhaustion in a conflict whose capacity for regeneration since 1948 has been boundless. Yet that is what a senior U.S. official found recently in the region, alongside a conviction that "it's time to change the Israeli-Arab equation."

In fact that equation has already changed. The Palestinian national movement and global jihadism are distinct, but to the extent the former has permeated the latter it has redoubled the determination of Palestinian pragmatists like President Mahmoud Abbas and his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, to deliver. Regular Abbas-Olmert meetings in recent weeks are one sign of this.

Another shift has been caused by Iran's growing influence - in Shiite-dominated Iraq, in Lebanon through Hezbollah, and in Gaza through Hamas. This has made Sunni states, including Saudi Arabia, fearful. Israel is Iran's enemy. The enemy of an enemy begins to look like a friend.

"Most, if not all the Sunni countries, see Iran as disturbing, unhelpful and violent," R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, told me. "It's a hard question whether they now see Iran as more dangerous than Israel. But most of these states understand that Israel is not a threat to them while Iran might be."

To coax Gulf countries to reach out to Israel - a Saudi presence at the November conference alongside Israel is a major U.S. strategic aim - the United States is readying a multi-billion dollar military aid package for them. It needs congressional approval, which will not come easily.

The administration believes the package is critical. "It says to the Iranians and Syrians that the United States is the major power in the Middle East and will continue to be and is not going away," Burns said. "It also says we take care of our friends, making sure they are strong, building up their conventional deterrence to Iran."

Strong words that indicate a gamble. Unlike Clinton in 2000, who tried to coax Yasser Arafat to compromise and hoped Middle Eastern states would follow, the Bush administration is trying to capitalize on unease in Sunni countries to get them to lead the way for the Abbas-Fayyad peace-now push.

The other side of this approach is confrontation with Tehran. Burns argues there is no choice so long as Iran will not suspend the enrichment of uranium and sponsoring of terrorists.

The price, however, will be Iranian use of surrogates to attempt to sink in blood any Israeli-Palestinian progress. I would quietly and unconditionally expand existing contacts with Iran in Baghdad to cover all issues. What is the downside to that?

A political contest of immense importance has begun. The United States must deliver by November or its conference will be an empty farce that feeds the sophisticated Iranian propaganda machine.

Delivering means a Saudi presence. It also means enough progress on territorial compromise and the principles to govern the thorniest issues - Jerusalem and refugees - for Palestinians in Gaza to wonder if they may be missing the statehood express.

The Bush administration contributed to the Palestinian hopelessness on which Hamas thrived. It can only undo that damage by ushering in hope.

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