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COMMENTARY
June 4, 2003
Bush & the Arabs
Contrary to media assumptions the President knows the Arabs and not the Europeans are his most important "sell" his most difficult and for the biggest stakes. For the purpose of his grand exercise in the assertion of American power is not to become fashionable in Paris but to eliminate "terror international" its causes and effects. That is why he is moving so recklessly on Israel/Palestine and throwing himself into the bearpit in Sharm el Sheik and Jordan. Previously he sent Colin Powell and it was unworthily suggested he was willing to sacrifice the credibility of his secretary of state on a hopeless cause. Now he has sent himself and on the same agenda. Those who do not grasp by now that the President means what he says may be fairly dismissed as impenetrable. Such commentators exist on both left and right and indeed both ends of the political spectrum seem now to be convinced that Mr. Bush is with Ariel Sharon in carriage purposely advancing a "road map" so little different from the old failed Oslo process that he must be expecting it to fail leaving Israel free when it does to settle matters by force. This is however a complete misreading of Mr. Bush. He may be foolish but he is not cynical. He has put his money where his mouth was a sufficient number of consecutive times and been sufficiently transparent about his intentions to be relieved of the latter charge. I myself don't see how that road map can possibly succeed; and my pessimism is reinforced by watching the new Palestinian premier Mahmoud Abbas a.k.a. Abu Mazen trying to arrange a mere "ceasefire" with Hamas and offer it a place in his government when he has pledged to eliminate it. He has allowed Yasser Arafat to create under his very nose an entirely new directorate for terror that is not answerable to the official Palestinian Authority which Abu Mazen now theoretically heads. He has watched silently while Arafat publicly poses with a Palestinian child exhorting the little girl to become a "shaheed" ("martyr"). He has allowed the official Palestinian newspaper Al Hayat Al Jadeeda to continue to fill its front page with gloating and approving accounts of terrorist hits on Jewish civilians. The paper like most other Arab media continues to identify Jewish towns within the Israeli Green Line as being in "occupied Palestine". The whole apparatus of incitement continues to scream while Abu Mazen makes empty claims to be dealing with it for purely foreign consumption. This is the old game: Palestinian words for Israeli deeds; and even the words are ambiguous. At the Sharm el Sheikh meeting Mr. Bush turned to Abu Mazen to declare that he and the other leaders assembled (the Syrian president was conspicuously absent) expected him to deliver on his undertakings. And yet behind Mr. Bush's back the Egyptian foreign minister was re-asserting that it is Arafat and not Abu Mazen who represents the Palestinian people. Mr. Bush's message to all was expressed thus: "Achieving these goals will require courage and moral vision from every side from every leader. America is committed and I am committed in helping all the parties to reach the hard and heroic decisions that will lead to peace." Israel for its part has released actual terrorists convicted killers as a "gesture of goodwill" -- and watched them flash the usual victory signs to the media on their way home. Prime Minister Sharon last week declared that the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza cannot continue -- traumatic statements to prepare his country at his own political expense for the actual removal of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. And yet Mr. Sharon was not allowed to step on Egyptian soil -- which is why Mr. Bush is meeting with him and with Abu Mazen in Jordan. Notwithstanding Mr. Bush is putting the credibility of the United States and his own prestige on the line. He is banking on the new leverage the U.S. has as a regional power in her own right -- she has occupied Iraq -- and on the cumulative effect of the trauma in the Arab world of watching Saddam Hussein's statue come down and absorbing that occupation. Alike to leaders and to the "Arab Street" Mr. Bush is saying: Which way will you go? Towards democracy and constitutional order or towards Armageddon there is no third way. That is what he believes and has every reason to believe; and he is taking risks on the basis of that belief. Israel most certainly risks getting burned for the peace Mr. Bush seeks is regional not local. He is trying to build momentum for a Middle Eastern "1989"; and continues to view the international situation in much broader terms than his critics. They for their part continue to interpret Mr. Bush 's moves according to rules of international behaviour that he publicly jettisoned after Sept. 11th 2001. This is a Herculean task: cleaning the Augean stables changing the very nature of Arab politics. Mr. Bush believes it cannot be avoided and he is right in the middle of it now. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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