More from the WaPo on Bush Mideast policy, or non-policy might be the more accurate term. On the one hand, they are thinking of imposing a peace, on the other hand, they have no intention of forcing Sharon to give a state to an unreformable terrorist like Arafat, so let's all play at reform for a while. Not that it really matters; having no coherent policy in place, they will be lead by events...
U.S. Considers Outlining Terms For Mideast Pact
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 28, 2002; Page A01
In a significant evolution of administration thinking, U.S. officials are debating whether to go beyond President Bush's endorsement last year of a Palestinian state and publicly detail terms for a final Middle East settlement, including a negotiating schedule for achieving an accord.
While U.S. officials are likely to proceed cautiously, any new effort to draw the outlines of a permanent agreement on such issues as borders, Jerusalem or Palestinian refugees, or to accommodate an Arab demand for a timeline, could bring the administration into conflict with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The Israeli leader has rejected any discussion of a final deal creating a Palestinian state.
U.S. diplomacy entered a lull following Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's trip to the region last month and a series of visits to the United States by Middle Eastern leaders. But discussions proceeding inside the administration could prove pivotal in shaping the future of its peace efforts.
"We are sorting out for ourselves what would be appropriate for us to say about the endgame and the best time to say something about it," an administration official said. "What we say about the endgame is something we are truly grappling with."
The urgency of resolving this debate was underscored yesterday when a Palestinian suicide bomber killed two Israelis at a shopping mall near Tel Aviv, demonstrating the risk that the administration's policy deliberations could quickly be overtaken by renewed violence.
Administration officials said the review could come to a head after the visit of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to Washington in early June and a pair of Middle East trips by CIA Director George J. Tenet and William J. Burns, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. The administration has planned since last week to dispatch Tenet and Burns to the region later this week to work on reforming, respectively, the Palestinian security services and government.
U.S. officials said they do not expect the administration to go as far as President Bill Clinton, who in his final weeks in office proposed specific "parameters" for a final agreement on borders between Israel and a Palestinian state, divided sovereignty over Jerusalem and a solution for Palestinian refugees.
But officials and other sources familiar with the debate said the U.S. vision could, for example, address fundamental questions, such as whether a final accord should be based on a return to the borders in 1967, when Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or rather on the more ambiguous U.N. Security Council standard of exchanging conquered land for peace.
The intense discussions over the terms of a final settlement show the distance the administration has moved as it increased its involvement in Middle East peacemaking in the aftermath of a rash of Palestinian bombings against Israeli civilians this spring and a major Israeli offensive against Palestinian camps and cities. The internal debate no longer focuses as it did this winter on whether to press for the removal of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, though he remains in low regard across the administration, but on how to bridge the yawning differences between Israel and U.S. allies in the Arab world over the goals of upcoming negotiations.
"Friends in the Arab world would say we need to be more specific about it and have a timeline. That clearly gives our Israeli friends some concerns," an administration official said. "We are really grappling with how to proceed given that situation."
During his visit to Washington three weeks ago, Sharon repeated his position that he is only prepared to discuss an interim agreement with the Palestinians. This would leave unresolved the ultimate status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees and Jewish settlements in occupied territories. Moreover, Sharon retreated from earlier statements supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state, saying in the White House that it is premature to discuss the issue.
Arab allies, meantime, have made clear they will withhold support for negotiations that do not address the core issues in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, rejecting an interim agreement after a decade of incremental deals. Jordan's King Abdullah articulated that demand most clearly during his visit to Washington three weeks ago by calling on the United States to focus on the "ultimate goals and principles of peace."
State Department officials in particular are urging the administration to take the initiative in advancing peace talks by detailing a U.S. vision, officials said. Administration skeptics, notably in the Pentagon, prefer that the United States steer clear of the nitty-gritty of peacemaking and give Sharon latitude to wage his war on Palestinian militants.
With the administration now envisioning a meeting of Middle Eastern leaders this summer to discuss the conflict, the question of how to close the gap between Israeli and Arab positions has taken center stage.
Administration officials say the challenge is very different from that of the 1990s, when the Israelis and Palestinians followed a detailed negotiating process required by the Oslo peace accord. The question confronting the administration is not what a final deal will look like, since many analysts say it would closely resemble the two-state solution discussed by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators at Camp David in July 2000 and at Taba, Egypt, the following winter. The issue is what the administration should publicly advocate to restart the bargaining process.
Aaron D. Miller, a longtime member of the State Department's Middle East team, said recently that the Oslo process provided a "tunnel" for the two sides but there was no "light" at the end, no consensus on the general contours of a final deal. Speaking to a meeting of the United Jewish Communities, Miller said the two sides now had the light but months of violence had destroyed mutual trust and with it the tunnel.
A U.S. effort to further detail a final agreement and set a negotiating timeline could give new impetus to peace talks. But this would require overcoming Sharon's objections at a time when few in the administration are anxious to pressure Israel.
Instead, U.S. officials are looking at an approach that "begins to make the Israelis more comfortable with what they might be dealing with in a political process both in political substance and in interlocutors," an administration source said. This means pushing reform of Arafat's security forces and government while drawing other Arab governments more directly into the bargaining process.
On his Middle East mission, planned for later this week after several delays, Tenet will seek to help streamline Arafat's numerous, often rival security services and make them more effective in countering militant violence. Tenet is also expected to meet with security and intelligence chiefs in allied Arab governments and seek their involvement in restructuring the Palestinian force, an administration official said.
"Their services are willing to play a very helpful role in putting the security part of the equation back on a better footing," the official said.
Burns, the State Department's senior Middle East expert, is scheduled during his visit to further evaluate how the Palestinian Authority can be rebuilt -- for instance, how to establish an independent court system and how to make the government more accountable, officials said. While marginalizing Arafat is not an explicit goal, his monopoly on power would likely be diluted under a new constitution, officials said.
"If you get the right kind of institutions with checks and balances in the system, you ultimately end up distributing power relative to a more centralized model," an administration official said.
Meantime, several Arab allies have taken a far more active role in trying to advance Palestinian reform and promote the resumption of peace talks. U.S. officials continue to single out the efforts of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah in trying to create conditions on the Arab side that are more conductive to negotiations.
For these reform efforts to succeed, administration officials are asking Israel to take several steps to ease the pressure on Palestinians. U.S. officials have suggested that Sharon lift the blockade on movement between West Bank cities and release tax revenue that Israel now owes to the Palestinian Authority. An administration official said the United States has suggested creative ways to assure Israel that this money does not end up in the hands of militants, for instance by directly paying vendors who sell civilian goods to the Palestinian Authority.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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