Step by Step to Avoid the Misstep : Taking stock of the altered Middle East political landscape

The time has come, said President Bush in his postwar victory address to Congress the other night, to put an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Few will dispute that noble aim--peacemaking, after all, is never out of season--but at the same time those familiar with past U.S. foreign policy will find Bush’s urging poignantly familiar.

THE NEW HOPE: Three of his predecessors issued similarly heartfelt if vain calls to end the long and enormously costly Arab-Israeli conflict, after wars fought in 1967, 1973 and 1982. In 1979, to be sure, a political and psychological barrier fell when Egypt split with other Arabs to make a U.S.-brokered peace with Israel. But otherwise things aren’t much different than they were 44 years ago, when Arab states refused to accept the U.N. partition plan for Palestine and the creation of Israel. Is there any reason to think the current postwar climate brings the chances for a breakthrough closer?

Maybe, for several reasons.

First, Iraq’s defeat has removed the region’s most threatening bully from the equation, in the process diminishing radicalism and discrediting the Palestine Liberation Organization, which sided with Saddam Hussein. That’s a matter of importance, because up to now no Arab state has wanted to buck the PLO when it comes to thinking about a settlement with Israel. All this could make it easier for more moderate Arab leaders to re-examine their ideas of what a reasonable accommodation with Israel might involve. It could even prompt as radical and bloody-handed a state as Syria to think again about what its own interests require.

Second, the opportunity to play off East against West has pretty much stopped being a significant factor in Middle East politics. The Soviet Union, even if it drifts back toward a harder international line, can no longer afford either economically or politically to throw its unreserved backing behind militant Arab clients. That in itself doesn’t guarantee a sudden conversion on the part of the militants to moderation and conciliation. But the effective loss of a big-power patron, one who if nothing else could be counted on to defend militant Arab interests in the U.N. Security Council, may well force reappraisals in Arab capitals.

Third, the Bush Administration is apparently determined for now to think small as it begins to circle around the prospect of Middle East peacemaking. The initial practical aim is to get some kind of dialogue going. As Secretary of State James A. Baker III swings through the Middle East, the word is that he will be urging “pragmatic” steps by Arabs and Israelis as confidence-building instruments. Among the ideas mentioned are an end to the Arab trade embargo and agreements on water rights.

THE HANG-UP: At some point, if the logjam between Israel and its neighbors breaks, the issue of the Palestinians and of exchanging West Bank territory for a political settlement will have to be addressed. Israel’s government, the most right-wing in its history, has already rejected a land-for-peace swap. It will go on doing so until the notion of such an exchange is transformed from a slogan to an issue of concrete choice. Then the dynamics of Israel’s internal politics will come into play, and change could follow.

The Bush Administration deserves full credit for the approach it is taking. It has rejected the specious allure of a so-called comprehensive peace plan, where achieving A requires that all parties must first agree to B, C and D. Instead, it has taken stock of the altered political landscape and decided to go at the problem serially and realistically, with no apparent deadline in mind but with the hope of making steady incremental progress. It may not work, but there’s a chance that it may also turn out to be the smartest thing that anyone has so far tried.