No Time for Letup in Mideast Talks : Presidential transition must not be an excuse

If Middle East peace talk participants are looking for an excuse to foot-drag in their negotiations for several months or more, they have it in the interregnum that now exists as the Bush Administration prepares to close shop and a still-unformed Clinton Administration prepares to begin learning its way through the corridors of power.

All sides deny having any interest in delay, insisting that they want to press ahead in the now year-old talks. Certainly that is a good sign. For all the bumps in the road encountered by the Middle East antagonists--the nasty fighting along the Lebanon-Israel border over the last few days being the latest--a sense does seem to be taking hold that an opportunity to achieve real change is at hand.

The end of the Cold War has helped force a new political realism on the area. The superpowers’ competition for regional influence has ended, giving rise to an unusual if shaky level of political stability. The arms race regrettably does continue, with Syria especially spending huge sums on weapons instead of on the development that its economy cries out for. But even Damascus now talks in unaccustomed tones of moderation. It has found an attentive listener in Israel’s new government, which has abandoned the paralyzing policy dogmas of its predecessor and is offering constructive concessions.

Israel and Jordan have made remarkable progress on an agenda for comprehensive peace talks. Israel and Syria are at least talking civilly to one another about political and territorial changes.

The key problem lies with the Palestinians, whose internal disputes and unrealistic demands threaten to cost them the chance to achieve at least a beginning level of self-government in the years ahead.

It’s clearly important that U.S. efforts to move things along not lag. Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III apparently stands ready to re-involve himself in Middle East shuttle diplomacy if he has reason to believe it would do some good and if his writ were to speak for the incoming as well as the lame-duck President. The second condition almost certainly would be met if the first could be.

Even if there is no highly visible capital-hopping by Baker or someone of similar standing, active American encouragement for the peace process over the next few months should remain strong. There is, as Bill Clinton correctly says, only one President and one chief policy-maker until next Jan. 20. But that doesn’t mean that some careful words from Little Rock urging on the Middle East negotiators would be out of line.