'Road map' for peace hits dead end
August 25, 2003
BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
For five hours after the Baghdad bombing of United Nations headquarters, there was a flicker of hope high in the U.S. government that the atrocity might unite the civilized world in rebuilding Iraq. Then came the West Bank bombing of a bus filled with Orthodox Jews the next day in Jerusalem. Word was passed from Washington to Israel, expressing hope that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would not overreact.
To no avail. The targeted killing of a Hamas political leader by Israel fulfilled the State Department's worst fears. The Middle East is a shambles. Global rage over Baghdad has been eclipsed by repercussions of Jerusalem. The unspoken fear is that with the road map for peace at death's door, Sharon will lash out militarily against Syria and even Iran to seek guaranteed security of Israel at the cost of the entire region set ablaze.
The flames already have consumed predictions by Sharon and George W. Bush of what an Iraqi change of regime would accomplish. The Israeli prime minister repeatedly told Americans that Saddam Hussein's removal would cripple Palestinian terrorists. After the fall of Baghdad, the president told associates that Sharon ''owes me big'' and would now prove amenable to peace plans and a Palestinian state.
Sharon did, without enthusiasm, accept the road map and, even more reluctantly, the June 29 cease-fire. When Secretary of State Colin Powell pointed out to Sharon two weeks ago that no Israelis were dying thanks to the agreement he so much disliked, the old Israeli general grudgingly agreed that was true.
While the Israelis contend that suicide bombings broke the truce, Palestinian officials respond that these murders were precipitated by targeted assassinations. Whichever side reinstituted the cycle of violence, it is welcomed by the Hamas and Islamic Jihad extremist groups and accepted as a necessary cost of freedom by the present Israeli government.
Not even high-ranking Americans who are committed to the peace process will publicly condemn Sharon for using a U.S.-produced aircraft to assassinate the Hamas leader. Powell has not uttered a word of criticism.
Deepening the despair of Palestinian moderates, slain Hamas political leader Ismail Abu Shanab was not involved in planning suicide bombings and was an advocate and negotiator of the cease-fire. Israel refuses to make any distinction between one member of Hamas and another, but Palestinians feel that seeking out Shanab sent a message.
The fallout is far-reaching. Egyptian security adviser Osama el-Baz has been on the West Bank pressuring Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to crack down on terrorist groups (reflecting pressure on Egypt by the United States). Indeed, before Shanab's assassination, Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan was completing plans to confiscate weapons from terrorist groups. Those plans are postponed indefinitely.
Abbas, with a small base of Palestinian support, faces conflicting demands of extremists and the Israeli government. Still, Powell is trying to prop him up as the fragile hope for reviving the peace process. Powell's call for Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to help Abbas, misinterpreted as turning back to the old terrorist leader, actually was an effort to get Arafat to turn over his remaining security forces.
Without a road map, is more force the answer for the United States? The normally sensible former Secretary of State Laurence Eagleburger argued on CNN last Wednesday that American forces should attack Hezbollah and Hamas outside Israel: ''I really do think we have got to become more engaged in dealing with the terrorists in and around that area.... The Baca Valley just beckons to us to go in there and drop a few bombs and see if we can't get a few people out of the way.''
That may fit Sharon's dreams of cleaning up the Middle East, but his blueprint so far is not working that well. While Bismarck's blood and iron united Germany, the formula is poorly designed for peace in the Middle East. |
