Why Annapolis?

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The US-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, is not something to which Arabs should be looking forward. Judging by the recent discourse of the parties concerned the conference -- should it finally be held -- will achieve no progress. So much was made clear in several revealing statements issued during US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to the region this week.

Commenting on the Palestinian-Israeli talks currently taking place in Jerusalem, Rice was quick to dampen spirits. It's very unlikely, she said, that there will be any "breakthroughs" in the Jerusalem talks. A joint Palestinian-Israeli document outlining the aims of the conference, she added, was never a "condition" for holding the November conference in the first place.

Rice made her statements following talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on 14 October. The next day she met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, after which she told a press conference that US president George W Bush is "committed" to "ending" what she called the "Palestinian problem". She then headed to Cairo where her Egyptian counterpart expressed concern over the vagueness and purpose of the Annapolis conference and suggested it be delayed. Rice replied there was no set date to be delayed.

So what exactly is Rice telling us? She's saying the conference will be held, even though it has no agenda and despite the fact she thinks the Palestinian and Israeli governments are incapable of moving forward towards resolving the decades-old conflict. Indeed, she describes 59 years of Israeli occupation, apartheid, violation of international law, the demolition of Palestinian homes and five million Palestinian refugees as "the Palestinian problem". Rice is not alone in cautioning against any expectations that the conference will have positive results. Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who will head Israel's negotiating team in Annapolis, has already warned the Arabs not to go to the conference with too many hopes.

So if the Americans are not taking the Palestinian-Israeli struggle seriously, and the Israelis, the Palestinians and Arab governments involved in the issue are sceptical about the conference's outcome, why are the Americans holding it?

One answer to that question lies in the timing of the conference. As Rice tours the region to supposedly resuscitate a dead peace process her main problem, and that of Israel, lies elsewhere, in Iran and Iraq. The American failure in Iraq has finally forced Bush to accept that withdrawing US troops is inevitable. But this can't happen before the regional stage is set, for which read further weakening Iraq by dividing it and, more importantly, dealing with the Iranian "threat". Annapolis was never about US commitment to ending "the Palestinian problem". It is a naïve attempt to market the current US administration as a peacemaker at a time when starting a new war is its only objective.