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COMMENTARY
March 29, 2002
Circling
As the end draws nigh (of the week at least) and the "peace process" completes another rotation and we prepare to return to non-stop violence it is time to take stock. The Arab leaders have returned from Beirut -- those few who decided to attend the Arab League summit meeting -- having published a bilingual text of the Saudi-proposed grand peace offering to Israel. The one that no elected Israeli government could ever accept but which Ariel Sharon's government has received gratefully since no Arab leader had proposed anything resembling peace with Israel since Anwar Sadat. Sundry standard ululatory cries for Israel's violent destruction by Syrian Algerian Libyan and other delegates were gracefully not published at least not in English. We had the spectacle of the pacifist-in-chief Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz hugging and kissing Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri. The latter is the deputy of Saddam Hussein who led the Iraqi delegation to Beirut. It was the first time in eleven years -- since the Gulf War of 1991 -- that Saudis and Iraqis had embraced in public. Meanwhile according to Washington sources a British newspaper and several Arab news agencies the U.S. is busily shipping goods and chattels from its huge Prince Sultan air base in the desert south of Riyadh Saudi Arabia to a new location in the Gulf sheikhdom of Qatar. The truck convoys are going to Qatar's al-Udeid air base which has played an important role in the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. fleet docks in neighbouring Bahrain. There is also extensive U.S. staff housing under construction in both places. There is similar evidence of a large U.S. troop build-up in Kuwait. Special forces are assembling in Oman. While the U.S. government says this is business as usual I don't think it is. The biggest favour the Bush administration can do just now for the House of Saud is to take it out of the line of fire. The Saudi royals intend to pose as neutral in the coming attack on Iraq and would be pleased not to supply targets for Iraqi Scuds. Unofficially as well as officially they are doing everything in their power to persuade both Saddam and the Ayatollahs of Iran that they have nothing to do with U.S. action plans. Unfortunately this only helps the other side focus missiles on Israel; and I daresay the U.S. is secretly extracting a price for letting the Sauds off the hook though I don't yet know what it is. (Something to do with the volume of production and therefore the price of oil?) While those negotiations proceed the U.S. continues to fly air patrols over the southern Iraqi "no fly zone" from the Prince Sultan base in accordance with existing agreements; though retaliation strikes have for some time been flown only from Kuwait. The news cameras remain focused on Israel/Palestine where the U.S. cannot decently ask Ariel Sharon not to resume "Operation Root Treatment" after the "Passover massacre" in the resort hotel in Netanya. At the time of writing the Israeli security cabinet was still meeting to discuss its options. By the time you read this you may know what they chose. The gravity of the meeting could be gauged by the response of Yasser Arafat who offered an immediate and "unconditional" ceasefire from his side. On the assumption this gambit would not work his Palestinian Authority had already evacuated every government and police building still standing on the West Bank and Gaza in preparation for attacks. (The Israelis had already warned foreign observers in Ramallah to leave town.) The purpose of the ceasefire Mr. Arafat proclaimed is to engage U.S. and European pressure to prevent the Israelis from responding to what his terrorists have done. It is another win/win proposition from the Palestinian side. For if the gambit is refused and the Israelis proceed with their anti-terrorist strike they will now get much additional fallout from world opinion. Whereas Mr. Arafat received only the faintest "tut-tut" for continuing the massacres of Jewish civilians while the Israelis were holding their fire in deference to Gen. Anthony Zinni's third "peace process mission". The insincerity of the offer was demonstrated by the rhetorical trick at the centre of it. Suddenly Mr. Arafat was accepting "unconditionally" the Tenet-Mitchell plan -- which was not at issue. He accepted that in principle a long time ago. At issue was the implementation agreement being hashed out with the Israelis under Gen. Zinni. And that is simply stalled because Mr. Arafat pulled his negotiators out of the conference several days ago after the Israelis had agreed to accept several Palestinian demands under Gen. Zinni's pressure. To my count since Gen. Zinni began his third "mission implausible" and the Israelis unilaterally pulled back some 11 major terror strikes on Israeli civilian targets have been prevented through the usual combination of sharp eyes and sheer luck. One of them was a powerful car bomb that detonated prematurely with its two occupants. It was on its way to kill and maim hundreds at Jerusalem's biggest shopping mall -- where almost everyone is now shopping because terrorist strikes have closed most of the shops in the inner city. Another was a Red Crescent ambulance carrying explosives which Israeli reservists fortunately spotted as suspicious. The ambulance contained a woman and her children as well as a wanted terrorist and his driver. These and nine other failed hits in addition to the several suicide bombers who did get through. Imagine what was intended. Where do we stand? We can say with some confidence that "Zinni III" has failed that Tenet-Mitchell is again proved meaningless that the Saudi peace plan is a dead letter and that lip service will continue to be paid to each of these causes. The reason becomes more and more evident: that the U.S. effort in the region is now on two almost unrelated tracks. One is this "going through the motions" of the "peace process" between Israel and the Palestinians -- but the Bush administration is too smart to believe it can work. The other is secret and hardball: the scheme that involves regime changes. It is this latter track that will soon enough alter power relations throughout the region at which point the Saudi initiative may be revisited and the two tracks brought back together. The whole disastrous "Madrid/Oslo peace process" was after all an artefact of the Gulf War of 1991. It will eventually be replaced by an artefact of Gulf War 2002. But meanwhile even "giving lip service" and "going through the motions" have become risky activities in the Middle East. The Bush administration is made to look foolish by the failure of each ritual gesture and pointless intervention. Political and diplomatic capital is being expended for no possible return. The best that can be achieved from it is to keep the baying hounds at a slight distance; it is like throwing meat to America's not-best friends the people and countries nominally allied who hold the U.S. accountable by habit for everything that ever goes wrong in the world. (The French for example; Arabian sheikhs; leftist Democrats; newspaper editors.) The U.S. must be seen to be following some "peace process" even when it is counterproductive. For at the worst the appearance created of U.S. impotence in the face of carnage is an encouragement to America's worst enemies. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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