I fear the United States has lost its will and determination to
engage in the nitty-gritty work of brokering Middle East peace.
Ever since the shuttle diplomacy in 1991 of former Secretary of
State James A. Baker III that resulted in the Madrid Peace
Conference - an event that shattered longstanding taboos about
Middle East peacemaking and that launched bilateral and
multilateral negotiations - U.S. leaders and officials have been
reluctant, though periodically active, peacemakers. Americans have
become prone to resort to lofty rhetoric and armchair diplomacy.
While sometimes demonstrating strong emotional commitment and
sometimes engaging quite earnestly with the parties, we have not
shown toughness on the toughest issues. The results have been
minimal and often counterproductive.
Even when our leaders have given it their all, the results have
turned sour. President Bill Clinton did not engage in Middle East
peace efforts until midway into his second term, and then embarked
on a series of high-profile diplomatic gambits whose failures
seeded an already dismal environment, the result of which was
bloodshed rather than reconciliation. President George W. Bush
articulated a vision of two states, Israel and Palestine, and he
oversaw the formulation of a Road Map for moving toward a
realization of that vision. But there was no sustained U.S. effort
or leadership and no willingness to push on both sides to take hard
steps. The result was a Road Map to nowhere and a vision without
substance. American leaders and envoys, it appears, have been
unwilling to take the hardest steps toward the peace we say is so
vital to our national interests.
In itself, American reticence to exert the leadership required to
catalyze a Middle East peace breakthrough would not be a problem if
the parties would go off by themselves and negotiate peace or if
they would empower another third party to assist them. Neither of
these has succeeded for long. Israelis and Palestinians used
Norwegian auspices - largely confined to hosting secret talks and
arranging logistics - to negotiate the Oslo Accords in 1993. The
Norwegians periodically helped resolve a small problem or two, but
they never played the role of mediator. Much later, the two sides
engaged with the Quartet, composed of the U.S., the European Union,
Russia and the United Nations, to oversee and monitor
implementation of the Road Map; but as useful as the Quartet proved
to be in concerting external parties' strategy, it proved too
unwieldy to do the agile diplomacy required of an active peace
process. Throughout this period, even when Norway or the Quartet
appeared to be in charge, both Israel and the Palestinians agreed
that only the U.S. could act as mediator.
For this reason, U.S. reticence to demonstrate diplomatic strength
in the peace process and the peace process failures when the U.S.
did engage are puzzling. I am currently directing a study at the
United States Institute of Peace that will assess U.S. negotiating
behavior during this period, and this study may yield more precise
answers as to why the Arabs, Israelis and the Americans were unable
to translate a very positive environment for peacemaking into
peace. In the meantime, it may be possible to offer some hypotheses
for these diplomatic failures and to suggest some ways to move
forward.
Baker's success in 1991 and the success of some earlier U.S.
mediation efforts - such as former President Jimmy Carter's
brokering Egyptian-Israeli peace and former Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger's helping Israel, Egypt and Syria negotiate three
disengagement agreements after the 1973 war - have a number of
important features in common. First, they all enjoyed the
unqualified support and backing of the American president. The
Middle East parties understood that the U.S. president had decided
to make the Middle East a priority interest of the U.S., which is
no small matter. In support of this national interest, U.S.
presidents conveyed promises of assistance, assurances of policy
support or pressure to change positions in the negotiations that
carried substantial weight and influence. No one has ever accused
leaders such as Yitzhak Rabin, Hafez al-Assad, Menachem Begin or
Yitzhak Shamir of softness, and yet each ended up making
concessions in negotiations that derived directly from the
persuasive pressure and/or tangible support of a U.S
president.
A second issue relates to accountability - did the U.S., as third
party, do enough to hold the parties accountable for implementing
or failing to implement agreements? For example, the U.S.
traditionally has expressed unqualified support for Israeli
security requirements, but has also argued that its willingness to
tilt in favor of Israeli security demands was designed to make it
easier for Israel to make political or territorial concessions for
peace. This point was tested seriously whenever the Palestinians
resorted to terrorism, breaking their commitment at Oslo to
renounce and uproot terror from their midst. The U.S. condemned
such acts of terror, but there was no consequence for Palestinians
having broken their commitment. In such cases, how seriously could
Israel accept U.S. statements of support for its security
needs?
A third feature common to successful negotiations was the
willingness of the U.S. to adopt positions that were not identical
to those of the parties. The U.S. did not necessarily "split
the difference" between the sides or always come out in the middle,
but it did find ways to articulate positions which could represent
possible compromises or launch negotiations in the right direction.
Over the past 15 years, this element has been largely absent from
U.S. diplomacy. Indeed, when the U.S. did put forward a proposal at
Camp David in 2000, the paper was quickly withdrawn in the face of
reservations expressed by both sides.
Successful U.S. mediation efforts also demonstrated willingness by
the incumbent president to adhere to his policies and approach,
even in the face of opposition from the parties and domestic U.S.
opposition. Carter and Begin disagreed profoundly over Israeli
settlements policies - as did President George H.W. Bush and
Shamir. But the U.S. presidents stood their ground, notwithstanding
the high domestic political costs of such confrontations. No
president was eager to buck domestic interest groups, but the
successful president understood that helping to broker Middle East
peace required the articulation of positions that could elicit
strong, opposing views from important domestic constituencies. In
contrast to this, throughout their presidential years, Clinton and
Bush never set out a U.S. position in Arab-Israeli affairs that
aroused opposition from the American Jewish community, suggesting
that domestic considerations were an inhibitor in each
administration when it came to brokering Middle East peace.
Perhaps most important among the factors of previous U.S. success
was sustainability and determination. Given the amount of time and
effort that he put into the Middle East in the last two years of
his administration, Clinton's interest in a Middle East peace
settlement cannot be questioned. What can be asked, however, is
where the drive and determination were during the first six years
of the Clinton Administration, at a time when the ingredients for
peacemaking seemed so favorable and when responsibility for U.S.
peacemaking was turned over to a special Middle East
coordinator? It was during this period that bad habits and
bad behavior become the norm for the parties in the region. It
appeared, throughout this period, that the process itself became
the goal for the United States, that is, keeping alive
Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Syrian engagement became so
important as ends in themselves that U.S. negotiators lost sight of
the need to press all the parties toward the goal of peace. To be
sure, none of our negotiators during that period can be accused of
lack of effort or determination; but it can be asked whether
they consistently drove the parties toward the hard decisions
required in the peacemaking process.
This question can be asked with even greater urgency with reference
to the Bush Administration's approach to the peace process. This
administration has seemed far more content with pronouncements than
with active diplomacy. Bush's 2002 vision of peace will stand as a
highlight of his administration, but what happened after he spoke
the words? A year later he launched the Road Map, only to see
it fail within three months without any serious U.S. effort to
assist its implementation. A U.S. official was appointed to oversee
the Road Map, but he came to the job with no experience in the
rough and tumble world of Middle East politics. By the time he had
set up monitoring system, the Road Map had collapsed. The president
dispatched a number of emissaries - ranging from former Secretary
of State Colin Powell to former CIA Director George Tenet to
General Anthony Zinni - but each was launched without White House
support needed at critical moments in their diplomatic
efforts.
So it is against this backdrop that current prospects for active
U.S. diplomatic engagement must be assessed. Even if we extract
Iraq and Iran from the equation - the two most pressing Middle East
issues on the administration's agenda - the short answer is that
this administration has provided no reason to believe that it will
engage seriously or in a sustained fashion in helping to broker
Arab-Israeli peace. President Bush has said that the
achievement of a two-state solution is one of his administration's
highest priorities, but he has done almost nothing to back up those
important words with even minimal deeds. As Bush grapples with the
crisis in Iraq and the emerging crisis in Iran, it is unrealistic
to believe that he will change course on Arab-Israeli issues, adopt
positions that could be unpopular at home and dive in head first
into peace brokering. High-sounding rhetoric likely will remain the
preferred diplomatic approach of this administration.
As difficult as it is to envisage the resumption of an active
Middle East peace process, however, the prospects are not entirely
dismal. First, the Israeli and Palestinian publics continue to tell
pollsters that they are ready to make the necessary concessions for
peace. Despite many years of violence, public opinion within both
communities remains supportive of peace. Now that Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas have met, there is an
opportunity to line up the will of the people with the creativity
and political ingenuity of their leaders.
Second, for the first time in years, even Syria is sending signals
of its interest in resuming a peace process. Syrian behavior has
been abysmal in all respects - Lebanon, Iraq, terrorism. And yet
the public pronouncements out of Damascus warrant more than the
knee-jerk rejection that has been Washington's reaction.
A third factor relates to the seismic, strategic changes underway
in the region. Saudi Arabia appears far more ready for regional
stabilization - including peace between Israel and the Palestinians
- than at any time in the past; and the Saudis have on the table a
peace proposal which appears to be of interest, at least in part,
to Israel's leadership. If the opportunity of the Saudi peace plan
was overlooked in 2002, perhaps it can be exploited in 2007.
Fourth, and perhaps most important, there is a government coalition
in Israel demonstrably supportive of peace, and a prime minister
who is on the public record as promising unprecedented territorial
concessions in the context of a peace process. The issue in Israel
today is no longer the will to make peace or Israeli settlements
policy; Israel's 2005 disengagement from Gaza and Prime Minister
Olmert's election prove clearly that Israel is ready for a serious
peace process with the Palestinians.
Thus, there is a choice for the U.S. administration, even in the
final two years of George Bush's presidency. Bush can continue his
hands-off approach to Arab-Israeli issues and confine himself to
lofty policy statements about the desirability of a two-state
solution. Or, Bush can invest presidential determination and time
to jumpstart negotiations; lay out U.S. thinking on final status
issues in a manner designed to provide the parties with an agenda
for negotiations; and keep the parties focused on negotiating in
good faith and implementing what they have agreed. Quite
unexpectedly, the conditions for peace process activity are
present. Now it is up to the U.S. to decide whether to test those
conditions in an active, U.S.-sponsored process.