IT OFTEN takes electric shock treatment to get the Middle East off its dead center of inertia. The lightning success of the first Gulf war in 1991 produced just that, unsettling all the old presumptions.
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President George H.W. Bush and his secretary of state, James Baker, recognized that although Iraq was no longer a threatening player for ill, there was more to be done. They recognized the centrality of the Palestinians to regional stability. They were quick to take advantage of the changed equation to bring - or drag, as in the case of Yitzhak Shamir's Israel - the regional powers to a conference in Madrid.
Although the Madrid conference did not ultimately succeed in achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace, it was a breakthrough of sorts that helped bring the parties to a new psychological level of recognition that the status quo was unacceptable.
Whereas the Madrid conference was born of an American success, the Annapolis conference was spawned from American incompetence and failure. Donald Rumsfeld's "shock and awe" turned out to be the region's shock that America could so dismally fail. Iraq has become the new century's quagmire, with the additional unintended consequence of abetting Shi'ite Iran's growing power and influence. For America's old Sunni allies, the rising genie from the uncorked Persian bottle brings terrors.
Jordan's King Abdullah spoke to these fears when he addressed the US Congress last March, begging for help resolving the Palestinian problem; to put out the fire in his rear in order to face the new heat from a rising Iran. Abdullah saw that continuing Israeli settlement activity would soon make a Palestinian state unviable. The reaction from Congress was not what he hoped. The Arab Middle East is badly frightened by what America has wrought. The level of anti-Americanism in the Arab world has grown to dangerous proportions, dangerous for leaders who ally themselves with the United States.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice deserves credit for finally recognizing what harm the continuing Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands is doing to America's interests, and for turning around her boss who, although mouthing support for a two-state solution, had for two terms preferred to leave the fate of the Palestinians to the Israelis. It was gutsy to invite Syria, which, heretofore, has been a junior member in the Axis of Evil Club.
Considering Rice's woeful view of Israel's destruction throughout Lebanon in the summer war of 2006, saying that the bombs were the birth pangs of a new Middle East, Rice has come a long way. It could not have been easy given the baleful influence of Vice President Cheney and his coterie, who opposed the Annapolis approach.
One could have wished for more. I heard longtime Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross say on National Public Radio that while the preparations for Madrid were meticulous, the planning for Annapolis seemed haphazard at best: more show than substance. Nor are peace prospects brightened by the near state of civil war among the Palestinians. Given that Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, and dismantlement of settlements, led only to more rockets, Israelis will need convincing to believe that a withdrawal from the West Bank wouldn't bring more of the same.
The shortsighted policy of trying to isolate and punish Gaza for electing Hamas to power has only increased radicalization and bitterness as the economy collapses, and brings credibility to the charges that Gaza has, in effect, become one vast, festering prison.
It is doubtful that either Ehud Olmert or Mahmoud Abbas have the political strength to bring their peoples to a shared vision, nor does Rice have the same diplomatic gifts that Baker had. There are powerful forces in opposition in both the Israeli and Palestinian camps, and how the influential Israeli lobby in America will react is another question. It is likely to resist any diplomatic pressure on Israel.
There may be silver linings, though. The Israeli public is more ready for a two-state solution than it was in 1991, and Olmert makes a powerful case that anything else will lead to a South African apartheid situation, an analogy former president Jimmy Carter was so roundly castigated for making. Israel's Arab neighbors are ready to make a deal if something close to a withdrawal to 1967 lines can be achieved, and the better war news from Iraq may give the Bush administration some breathing room.
However, everything depends on whether George W. Bush will follow up on Annapolis with a meaningful, laser-like push toward peace. Unfortunately, nothing in the president's record so far gives reason for optimism.
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