The raging storm of violence that has gripped the Middle East may have abated for the moment, but beneath the surface dangerous and conflicting currents are still surging. These colliding streams reach beyond the Palestinians and Israelis to the United States, where incoherence has been the most notable characteristic of Washington’s Middle East policy.
The Bush White House is not so much interested in a settlement in Palestine as in a way to make the thing go away. George W. Bush has run the gamut of his instincts, getting tough, tougher and then really tough, with both sides. The Israelis ignored him because they knew they could with impunity and the Palestinians rightly distrusted any suggestion he made about terrorism because it did not embrace the real terror.
The Zinni mission was a no-hoper before the general even flew out of Washington for the first time, as the president’s personal representative. But Secretary of State Colin Powell’s visit was of a different order of magnitude. Powell’s background may be military but his is a world view far subtler than that of his chief in the White House.
Because the White House sees Palestine as being a whole load of trouble, the lead on a Middle East solution appears to have been passed, with some relief, to Powell and State. Bush, who with US Zionist backing, is planning on a second term of office, does not want the stain of failure on his political record. By handing over the search for a Middle East solution to Colin Powell, he is distancing himself from what he expects will be further political humiliation. He is also freeing himself to concentrate on his far simpler, and simplistic war on terrorism which will really win him votes.
This arrangement has the further advantage that if Powell drops the ball, his political reputation will suffer and any hopes of his own run at the White House will evapourate. In forming a second administration, Bush will have little problem dropping the former general altogether.
Thus the Mid East peace conference Powell has announced within the next two months, is likely to be very much his own make-or-break show, with the White House keeping well back, except to make the appropriate encouraging noises. What Bush aides actually say behind closed doors may be rather different. Ariel Sharon, fresh from his triumph of seeing off a UN investigation into atrocities allegedly committed by his troops in Jenin, will doubtless be assured privately that Washington is not going to let him down.
The nature of the peace conference, most particularly the extent to which the Saudi peace plan forms the basis for any proposed settlement, remains to be seen. The problem for Powell rests in a fatal conundrum; only the United States is in a position to exercise influence over Israel, however United States has resolutely refused to exert that influence.
The time may be fast approaching when the true nature of Washington’s leverage over Israel needs to be reassessed. If it is, as the developments of the past months would seem to show, minimal then maybe the USA should pull out of trying to broker peace. If on the other hand, its influence is real but Washington has in fact been working hand in glove with the Israelis, as many in the Arab world believe, then the Americans can in no way assume the role of honest brokers of any sort of peace.
Either way, Colin Powell is going to be standing on quick sands. The only thing he can be sure of is that if, against the odds, his Middle East peace conference does produce a result, then George W Bush’s White House will step back into the lime light and claim all the credit.
