U.S. Short on Time in Quest for Peace

Is the re-energized U.S. quest for peace in the Middle East, launched barely a month ago by the Bush administration, already facing derailment by the double whammy of a new suicide bombing and diplomatic deadlock?

Not necessarily, say both U.S. officials and Middle East experts, even as they caution that another Israeli military operation could complicate an already fragile and messy process.

But concern is growing among both Arabs and Israelis, as well as U.S. observers, that the administration needs to accelerate its own decision-making process to chart a clearer course toward peace.

“The administration is dangerously undecided,” said an Arab envoy who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitive diplomacy. “Time is a luxury we no longer have.”

The administration struggled Wednesday to keep its peace initiative on track as President Bush met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and U.S. officials expressed confidence that their efforts will prevail.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell acknowledged that the latest bombing--a Tuesday night attack on a pool hall near Tel Aviv that killed 16 Israelis--would again “put at risk” the possibility of progress. But he sought to keep attention focused on the long-term goal.

“Every time one of these events happens, it takes us off a course that we were on for a while. But I think it’s a course that, ultimately, we have to get back to, because no matter how many military operations one conducts or how many suicide bombs are delivered, at the end of the day we have to find a political solution,” Powell said after talks with British Foreign Minister Jack Straw.

Bush singled out for praise Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s announcement that he had ordered Palestinian security forces to try to prevent all terrorist attacks. Bush called that decision, coming after weeks of U.S. pressure on Arafat to issue such a declaration, an “incredibly positive sign.”

Events Squeeze

the United States

U.S. officials and Middle East experts stressed that the realities of the situation in the region haven’t changed, despite the gripping drama that played out Tuesday across global television screens after the pool hall bombing and an angry reaction from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who a short time later abruptly ended his visit to Washington to return home.

The White House had anticipated that Sharon, in his Oval Office meeting Tuesday with Bush, would maintain his tough stand against negotiating with Arafat and propose slowing the peace process to a virtual crawl.

For weeks, U.S. officials also had warned that additional suicide bombings were inevitable, saying that Israel’s military incursion into the West Bank could dismantle some extremist cells but not eliminate Palestinian anger and frustration.

“Both of these events were perfectly predictable, and they shouldn’t change what people already had in mind,” said Robert Malley, a Middle East negotiator for the Clinton administration’s National Security Council.

The issue now is how much the latest developments, potentially compounded by an Israeli military response, will hurt efforts to get the major players around a conference table--and whether it widened the gap among them. Administration officials recognize that even as they continue their push to get the regional players together, a major danger is that such an initiative would collapse because of bickering.

Some analysts, already factoring in an Israeli military response to the latest bombing, suggested that the diplomatic and security challenges are squeezing the United States more than any other country. Events continue to force the Bush administration to move beyond general principles for resolving the Middle East conflict to specifics.

“Everyone realizes that this descending spiral of violence will continue until there is a political breakthrough--and that can only come through assertive U.S. intervention,” said Geoffrey Kemp, a National Security Council specialist on the Middle East during the Reagan administration.

So far, the Bush team has been straddling the positions of Israel and moderate Arabs, “depending on who was the last person in the Oval Office,” Kemp said.

“Making a tough call will require being tough on the Arabs, but also presenting Israel with clear indications about American preferences over how a final settlement should be implemented and what it will look like,” he said.

Israeli and Arab officials involved in the flurry of diplomatic talks in Washington this week increasingly are worried that the administration, particularly Bush, has not decided what to do with the disparate peace proposals pushed by Israel and moderate Arabs.

Complicating matters is that different branches of the administration are leaning in different directions, according to Israeli and Arab diplomats involved in recent talks with U.S. officials.

Sharon was bolstered by his talks in Washington with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, according to Israeli sources. The Pentagon appeared more sympathetic to Israel’s preference to marginalize Arafat from the peace process and focus on Israel’s security rather than a final political settlement leading to a Palestinian state.

“Rumsfeld totally bought Sharon’s line. They now read from the same scriptwriter,” an Arab official said.

Calls for Shorter

Peace Process

In contrast, Powell’s State Department has been more receptive to the position of moderate Arabs that no progress is likely to be made unless the political process is accelerated and combined with all other aspects of the negotiations.

There is a growing consensus among experts who served in previous administrations--both Republican and Democratic--that the Bush team eventually will have to accept pushing for a final settlement as soon as possible. Shortening the peace process will help preempt militants, these experts say.

“Every time something starts to move, terrorists act because it’s not in their interests, and then peace efforts come unstuck,” said Martin Indyk, who was U.S. ambassador to Israel under Clinton and during the first months of the Bush administration.

At the moment, Indyk said, the parties are headed in the right direction--rebuilding security arrangements, advocating reform of the Palestinian Authority and organizing a conference to launch negotiations. But even that combination is not enough, he said.

“If the United States and the Mideast leaders don’t want the whole thing to blow up in their faces, everybody is going to have to stretch in terms of what they’re going to do,” Indyk said.