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COMMENTARY
March 16, 2002
Zinnifications
Does Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni (ret.) have anything new to say? This fairly obvious question was at the top of many minds this week as the U.S. negotiator rode in for his third try at obtaining at least a truce between Israel and the Palestinians. The lights are unfortunately on him instead of on Dick Cheney the U.S. vice president whose more important tour of Middle Eastern capitals has been thrown into shadow. I write "more important" not because the violence in Israel West Bank and Gaza is not appalling but because it cannot be resolved by any "peace plan" now on the table. In particular not by "Tenet and Mitchell" the flip beltway jargon even President Bush is now using for the long-proposed waltz of mutual disengagement that the reader will thank me for not summarizing again. Nor has the much-hyped Saudi Arabian peace initiative any chance of making a difference on the ground. This last represents a promise that various Arab nations might recognize Israel in some inconsequential form after Israel capitulates to the complete list of current Palestinian demands. But since hell will freeze over before Israel admits four-and-a-half million Palestinian refugees and drops all interest in the Wailing Wall and other Jewish holy sites in eastern Jerusalem -- it should rather be viewed as one of the largest red herrings ever to be pulled out of the Dead Sea. Two diplomatic missions have thus been afoot in the region this week. The first is the State Department's: Colin Powell handing off to Gen. Zinni in the hope he can run an unlikely first down. The other is presidential: Mr. Cheney trying to put ducks in order for the next American incursion into Iraq. Whether Gen. Zinni is carrying a new plan is crucial to both missions. If his job is merely to keep up U.S. appearances as a way of assuaging fury among the "moderate" Arab regimes and distracting the gullible in Europe -- then he is doomed to his worst failure yet. All sides will see through that fairly quickly. If alternatively he now represents a secret U.S. plan -- of which I for one am completely unaware -- to impose a truce under U.S. supervision and peace talks under plausible U.S. threats then we have a new situation. A "new ball game" as it were that will be played with grenades. Let me sketch this probably non-existent plan for discussion purposes. President Bush instructs both Israeli and Palestinian combatants to return to bases. He inserts a significant number of impressively armed U.S. soldiers and vehicles between the two sides. These alone would conduct systematic searches for terrorists and their weaponry in the West Bank and Gaza mount whatever necessary roadblocks and work alongside Palestinian Authority representatives in policing the territories day-to-day. U.S. troops would also take over the policing of formerly Syrian territory in the Golan Heights and occupy a defensive corridor in southern Lebanon. (We're looking at about 70 000 frontline U.S. troops and minimum $20 billion in extra cash per year.) Peace talks then proceed in which a direct representative of the U.S. president outlines certain arbitrary and non-negotiable trade-offs on demands. For example Israel must withdraw settlements beyond the Green Line (not a small matter when you consider that reimbursements to settlers for lost property will run to tens of billions of dollars and leave the Palestinians without their principal source of food) in return for which the Palestinians will drop all demands for Israel to accept even a single symbolic Palestinian refugee (again not a small demand given Palestinian expectations). Each side to reimburse its own displaced persons. All of the Old City of Jerusalem and a defensible portion around incorporating the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives to be placed under a U.S.-led international commission. Government buildings for the new Palestinian state to be located outside this area. The result of such an active intervention would be to put American troops in harm's way. It would immediately subject them to attacks both informally from Yasser Arafat's various "militias" and more systematically from Hezbollah Hamas Jihad Islami. (Syria is presently aiding a formidable build-up of Hezbollah terrorist firepower against Israel's northern borders and we've had glimpses of the efforts to import such materiel into the West Bank and Gaza.) This courting of danger would be the whole point. For it would no longer be possible to attack Israeli interests without directly attacking those of the U.S. Persistent attacks would involve the U.S. in executing a long overdue regime change in Damascus -- to complement the ones already necessary in Baghdad and Tehran. More likely Syria's Bashir Assad would suddenly decide it were time to annihilate Hezbollah and recognize Israel; simply because he wanted to remain personally alive. Ditto Yasser Arafat and his terrorist militias. I have sketched out this pipe dream because it represents from what I can gather of the military situation the minimum necessary to impose peace -- a peace which cannot possibly materialize spontaneously. At the core is an inescapable fact: that if the U.S. for hard diplomatic reasons will not allow Israel to fully defend itself then the U.S. must provide the service. The only third option is to allow Israel to be annihilated in stages. Much more likely the sharp end of U.S. policy will continue to be conducted from the outside in instead of the inside out. In other words Mr. Cheney is now carrying the real ball. Any prospect for real peace and with it a state for Palestine will follow rather than precede regime changes in Baghdad and elsewhere. Only when Mr. Arafat is finally caught between the rock (Israel) and a hard place (no international rogue supporters) will he or his successor see the game is up -- that there is no way to get rid of Israel. Unfortunately for the U.S. fighting "outside in" leaves the war on international terrorism permanently hostage to unpredictable local developments in Israel/Palestine. Most spectacular among the near-term unpleasant possibilities would be a sudden missile strike from Lebanese territory designed to provoke a huge Israeli response which in turn would throw the "moderate" Arab states into convulsions. In the West Bank and Gaza itself it would seem that Israeli soldiers were able to perform a fairly effective spring-cleaning of the terrorist lairs that should be good until perhaps late summer. Lebanon is the next place that needs hitting hard. Needless to say this is not the way Mr. Cheney speaks aloud to the Arabs he's visiting. He has the advantage of very broad Middle Eastern experience; and has thus been explaining not what U.S. plans are but with cultural sensitivity what they are not. For instance that the U.S. has no intention to play games over weapons inspections in Iraq; to tolerate Iranian adventures much longer in Lebanon or western Afghanistan; to cease following the money and personal trails that lead from Al Qaeda cells all over the world back to Saudi Arabia. Nor would the U.S. be disposed not to intervene directly if it appeared Al Qaeda were recongregating at scale in the frontier regions extending from eastern Yemen to the Saudi Asir. One of Mr. Cheney's principal breakthroughs has been obtaining something close to enthusiasm from Yemen in its apprehension of this last double negative. The temperature everywhere continues to rise. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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