4 -10 April 2002
Issue No.580
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 4 -10 April 2002 Issue No.580 |
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Seeking engagement
The US reaction to the Israeli incursion in Ramallah raises many questions about President Bush's intentions towards the occupied territories. Thomas Gorguissian reports from Washington
As the administration of President George W Bush continued to refrain from taking decisive action on the escalation of violence in the occupied territories, numerous heavyweights on the US political scene made known last week their prescriptions for the situation.
President Bush on Monday expressed understanding for the Israeli offensive against Palestinian cities and repeated his demand that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat denounce attacks by Islamist militants against Israelis.
Bush told reporters, "Suicide bombing in the name of religion is simple terror. And the free world -- the civilised world -- must band together to stop this kind of activity if we expect there to be peace and resolution in the Middle East." The only departure from this line came when he asked Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to "keep a pathway to peace open."
In the aftermath of last week's events in the occupied territories, President Bush excluded the Palestinian leader from being a supporter of the US administration's enemies -- "any leaders who sponsor terrorism or harbour terrorists."
White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer said in the daily briefing, "He [Bush] believes that... Chairman Arafat continues to speak with the authority of the Palestinian people. Chairman Arafat has the means and the ability to reduce the violence and Chairman Arafat also has the ability to enter into productive, fruitful peace talks with Israel."
Those statements came as observers of the administration -- critics and supporters alike -- expressed concern about what appeared to be President Bush's preference to remain "disengaged" on the matter.
"What we're not hearing is any sense of direction from the United States," Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to former President Jimmy Carter, told CNN.
The report by Washington Post staff writer Mike Allen from Crawford, Texas, where President Bush spent his Easter weekend, pointedly contrasted the leisurely timbre of the president's weekend with events in the occupied territories. Allen opened his article, writing, "As Israeli troops and tanks stormed Yasser Arafat's compound today, President Bush played with his dogs, went for a jog and worked around his ranch."
Many hours, in fact, had elapsed following the beginning of the assault on Ramallah before the administration commented on the matter through Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Administration officials, including the president himself, denied accusations that he was not involved, or not deeply involved in decisions on the matter. However, neither he nor his administration has announced plans to dispatch any official to the region who is higher than General Anthony Zinni, the Middle East special envoy who is currently in the region.
Senator Joe Lieberman, D-Connecticut, said in a TV interview that he was seeking "much bolder moves" from the administration. "I think it's time, with all respect to General Zinni, that the president ask Secretary [of State Colin] Powell, who has such great stature throughout the world, to go to the Middle East."
Commenting on the administration's disengagement, Lawrence S Eagleburger, secretary of state during the senior Bush's presidency, told CNN, "I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist, but I suspect the reason [for Bush's inaction] is that he's recognised that simply to insert himself into this mess without any real possibility of achieving any success is, in and of itself, dangerous, because it would demonstrate that, in fact, we don't have any ability right now to control or affect events."
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Delaware, had a different take on the administration's lackadaisical response. "I think there needs to be something dramatic done, and that means the president has to step up his involvement," Biden said.
Senator Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, who recently returned from the Middle East, having met several leaders including Arafat, also advocated a more active tack. "I think we need to move aggressively with the Arab countries where we think the financing [for suicide bombing operations] is coming from. We need to propose a political settlement at the end of the security rainbow, to try to give some hope to these 18-year-olds who are really just posing a threat which can't be stopped," he told CBS's Face the Nation.
Even UN Security Council resolution 1402, approved last week with the support of the United States and which asks for the withdrawal of Israeli troops, became the subject of a range of interpretations concerning its implementation just 48 hours after it was issued. White House spokesman Fleischer said on Monday, "It [the resolution] is perfectly consistent with the president's view about what needs to happen to create a peace in the region that will allow for an Israeli withdrawal and an end to the incitement -- an end to the violence." He also emphasised that a "meaningful cease-fire" was in the document's "very first sentence." Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, diplomatically pointed out to reporters that one element of the resolution did not take precedence over another. "I share the view that there is no sequencing and that things have to move ahead very quickly," he said.
According to Annan, only "a reckless optimist [would] say that the worst is over." He added, "Indeed, I fear that much worse is to come if the escalation on both sides is allowed to continue. The parties are locked into the logic of war, and I fear for the consequences, including for the region."
Former Senator George Mitchell, the eponymous author of last year's peace plan on the conflict, said in a television interview, "There is no military solution to this conflict on either side. The only way to resolve this is through negotiation and an agreement which provides the Israelis with the security they need and the Palestinians with the state that they want." Mitchell said that a political process mediated and sponsored by the US that would result in a Palestinian state needed to take place. "The Israelis have a state, they want security. The Palestinians don't have a state, they want one," Mitchell pointed out.
Brzezinski was blunt in stating the case for engagement by the Bush administration when he said that unless the United States stepped in and insisted that UN resolution 1402 "is respected -- and is respected immediately -- the situation will gravely deteriorate." He also called for an American initiative for peace that "is comprehensive, articulate, specific and which we're prepared to back with our political resources and, if necessary, guarantee -- if the parties agree -- with our own forces on the ground, so that peace and accommodation between the Israelis and the Palestinians can be enforced."
Brzezinski extended his warning: "And let's not kid ourselves. Our ability to conduct the war against terrorism is going to be in jeopardy as a consequence of this. America will be more a target of hatred. And if things get really bad in the Middle East, we could even face an oil embargo," he said before concluding, "The stakes here are enormous, and the failure of leadership could be very costly."
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