A Daunting Trek, Even With a Map

The “road map” for Middle East peace unveiled Wednesday may be the most detailed and widely backed plan yet to end the 55-year conflict between Israel and the Arabs. But the United States and its allies face daunting obstacles to achieving the goal of creating a Palestinian state by 2005, according to U.S. officials, analysts and former mediators.

Three factors that have altered the political scene since peace efforts collapsed in January 2001 have spawned cautious hope that this plan may succeed where others have failed.

The swearing in this week of Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, has forced aside the recalcitrant Yasser Arafat. The Iraq war forced out Saddam Hussein, Israel’s nemesis and a supporter of Palestinian militants. And the war on terrorism has mobilized global opinion and action against extremism.

The plan, which was formally given to the Israelis and the Palestinians on Wednesday, calls for reciprocal measures through three phases, highlighted by an end to Palestinian violence and various Israeli concessions on border closures and Jewish settlements. The creation of a provisional Palestinian state would be in the second phase, and intense negotiations over Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and final borders in the third.

President Bush was upbeat Wednesday, despite the failure of past U.S. efforts to achieve a settlement. Past failures don’t “mean that we’re not going to try, for starters,” he told reporters. “I’m an optimist. Now that we have an interlocutor from the Palestinian Authority that has spoken clearly about the need to fight terror ... we have a good opportunity to advance the peace process. And I will seize that opportunity.”

Bush also said the Iraq war had signaled that forces supporting, funding or harboring terrorists will be held to account. “That, in itself, helps create the conditions to move peace forward,” he said.

The plan, designed by the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia, also comes at a time of common cause between Israelis and Palestinians about ending the current “war process,” according to Dennis Ross, the chief U.S. mediator under the first Bush and Clinton administrations.

“What makes the road map possible is a convergence of interests in the near term. Abu Mazen has said there is no military solution to the Palestinian issue and that terrorism is destroying a just cause. And [Israeli Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon knows from an economic standpoint that he needs to bring the current struggle to a conclusion,” said Ross, who is now director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Yet a common desire to end the current violence does not guarantee movement forward on peace, Ross cautioned. It also offers an “illusion of specificity” with detailed requirements that still have to be translated into agreed actions.

In addition, the road map is vulnerable to many of the problems that have plagued earlier efforts, say former officials and mediators. For starters, it is being imposed rather than coming out of negotiations between the parties.

“This is not a road map which either side has signed onto. It wasn’t negotiated with them and so the best it can do is serve as a guide,” said Martin Indyk, former U.S. ambassador to Israel for the Clinton and current Bush administrations.

The White House has conceded that the road map’s release offers no guarantees. “Make no mistake: It will be hard work. There will be a lot of hand-holding required,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Wednesday.

At any point, one party could say enough progress was not being made and the whole process would get stuck, said Shibley Telhami, who holds the Sadat chair in international peace and development at the University of Maryland.

“The road map is far from an ideal document for peacemaking. It is almost entirely dependent on the goodwill of both parties and assumes that both are already committed to the ideas suggested in the road map and will willingly implement them,” he said.

“That’s not a good place to be, given the suspicions and mistrust that have taken over during the past 2 1/2 years.”

The process also relies heavily on one man: Abbas. The new Palestinian leader faces the challenge of dealing with a spectrum of interests, ranging from a right-wing Israeli government to Islamic extremists determined not only to scuttle peace but to destroy Israel.

Sharon’s own Likud Party has voted against the peace process, while Arafat has already indicated his unwillingness to cede all major power to Abbas. Meanwhile, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not prepared to relinquish armed struggle.

“The two suicide attacks in the last few days were not accidental. They were timed for this. And Israel will not pull out or ease controls if they see the possibility that it will only lead to a lot of dead Israelis,” Ross said.

Preempting a new cycle of violence may prove difficult, whatever Abbas’ commitment. He is in a “weak position, with very limited security capabilities,” said Indyk, now director of the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution.

Palestinian security forces are in disarray and building a new force is at the core of reforms in the road map’s first phase, which is expected to take time -- endangering Abbas’ ability to end the bloodshed and making the new Palestinian leadership and the road map susceptible to failure.

“If Abu Mazen fails, that’s it. There’s no other Abu Mazen -- no moderate, credible leader. He represents the last chance,” said Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher in an interview.

Key to translating the road map into tangible gains will be a strong U.S. role, analysts warn -- more so than before. Bush told reporters Wednesday, “I look forward to spending time and energies to move the process forward.” And Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is expected to launch talks during a trip to the region next week.

But the first Bush administration also tried its hand at Middle East peace after winning a decisive victory against Iraq -- an effort that produced the Madrid conference that brought together Israel and the Arab states, but quickly bogged down. Bush -- like his father -- faces the problem of timing -- pursuing a renewed peace effort with elections around the corner for a second term.

“Does the U.S. have the stamina or will to do this now? Most people in the Middle East are skeptical because they know a U.S. election is coming,” Muasher said.

Given the campaign schedule and realities of past elections suspending previous peace efforts, he predicted that Washington has about six months to make significant progress.

Already, the road map has become a political issue. Bush told reporters Wednesday that Abbas, who is expected to be invited to the White House, is a Palestinian leader he could “trust” and work with. But Congress is calling on the White House to make the Palestinians take decisive action before Israel is asked to make concessions.

In a letter signed by three-quarters of the House of Representatives, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo) said an end to all Palestinian terror and violence had to be the first requirement if the road map is to have success. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) co-sponsored a letter signed by more than 80 senators calling for “actions -- not just promises” from the Palestinians.

Congress has gone further than Sharon, who called for the new government to make a “100% effort,” which allows Abbas some breathing space to rein in all the groups and attacks.

But the Arab world is pressing the administration to get Israel to provide real signs of its commitment, such as cutting back on the hundreds of checkpoints, easing border closures and particularly freezing settlements.

“If nothing happens, in two years’ time the prospects of any peace will be finished. The settlements are moving east in ways that split the West Bank in two,” Muasher said.