Posted on 06/02/2003 5:32:51 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Arabs Say Iraq Lies on Bush's 'Road Map' to Mideast Peace
By ALAN COWELL The New York Times
SHARM EL SHEIK, Egypt, June 2 When President Bush (news - web sites) opens a new Middle East peace quest on Tuesday with Arab kings, presidents and ministers in this sunstruck Red Sea resort, he will confront a region still trying to absorb America's occupation of Iraq (news - web sites) and still profoundly skeptical of Washington's will or even ability to pressure Israel into a settlement.
For aficionados of déjà vu and dynastic ironies, the encounter here with leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain and the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) resonates with memories of 1991, when an American president, Mr. Bush's father, went to war against Baghdad and then sought a settlement between Palestinians and Israelis at a conference in Madrid.
But there is a crucial difference. The 1991 war to reverse Iraq's invasion of Kuwait shifted the regional equation by weakening the radical Palestinian cause and encouraging the United States to cast itself, along with Russia, as a broker. This time, the war has left an American occupation force in charge of an Arab nation, unsettling many Arabs who bridle at such intrusions.
"The test is in Iraq," said Abdel Raouf el-Reedy, a former Egyptian ambassador to Washington. "The United States is holding all the cards: Is it going to be a force for liberation or a force for occupation? Is it going to be a power for hegemony, or a power for reform and democracy?"
The spokesman for President Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites) of Egypt, Nabil Osman, said: "The American image in the area has been badly shaken for many reasons including the war in Iraq. If America is interested in improving its image, it now has an opportunity for visible and tangible measures" to build peace.
Just a glance at who is not attending the one-day gathering here is enough to show how much the region has shifted since the 1991 conference in Madrid.
Syria a crucial force in previous efforts toward a broader Arab-Israeli peace is not represented. Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) has disappeared from view, King Hussein of Jordan has died, replaced by his son, King Abdullah, and both the United States and Israel are seeking to sideline Yasir Arafat, the president of the Palestinian Authority.
Some regional alignments have also been remolded: Jordan made peace with Israel in 1994, and Mr. Arafat and his followers returned from exile to the West Bank and Gaza.
But one thing has not changed. While Arab political leaders sense what Mr. Osman, the presidential spokesman, called a "golden opportunity," ordinary people seem more despairing.
"Why should we expect that something will happen this time?" said Magdi Salam, a 37-year-old construction contractor, who spoke to a reporter in the Wadi-el-Nil Club teahouse, in Cairo's Tahrir Square, where men puff on water pipes. "Every time there is a peace effort, it ends up worse than the time before, and the Palestinians have even less rights."
Adel al-Gogry, a columnist in Al Wafd, an Egyptian opposition newspaper, said that "we should admit that there is a real gap between the official and the popular stance towards the United States."
"The Arab street is totally angry today and is boiling against American policy," he wrote. "We want to tell President Bush that American policy needs a comprehensive review so that Americans will not have to ask the question: `Why do they hate us?' "
It is, of course, easy enough to blame Washington, and the condemnations are ambiguous: no one in this region is seriously looking to other powers to lead the hunt for a settlement, even though many doubt that President Bush is prepared to risk electoral losses at home by confronting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) of Israel. And as much as people fulminate against Washington, the passions that seized the Arab world before and during the Iraq war seem to have eased.
Before the war, "the winds were all blowing in the direction of the radicals," the director of Cairo's Ahram Center for Strategic Studies, Abdel Monaem Saed, said, referring to the collapse of earlier peace moves and a bloody Palestinian uprising that has claimed hundreds of lives in suicide bombings and reprisals.
"Now there's a beginning of a coalition of moderates," Mr. Saed said. "The politics of moderation will have a say in the future of the Middle East. But the window of opportunity is limited. The radicals will not just sit and hold their hands. This initiative will be tested."
President Bush will meet the moderate Arab leaders here on Tuesday before flying to the Jordanian port of Aqaba, where he will, for the first time, preside over an encounter between Mr. Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas, the new Palestinian prime minister, who is being promoted by Washington and Israel as an alternative to Mr. Arafat.
The goal is to propel the region onto the much-vaunted "road map" a plan for peace sponsored by the United States, Russia, the European Union (news - web sites) and the United Nations (news - web sites) that features phased, reciprocal peace moves intended to lead to the creation of an independent Palestinian state by 2005.
"What Bush will hear is that all the Arab leaders are behind it and they want to see positive results," Mr. Osman, the Egyptian presidential spokesman, said. "They don't want the road map turned into a propaganda ploy. The Arab leaders want to hear what America will be doing in the coming stages."
Unlike its image in previous peace efforts, however, America is no longer seen as a distant power broker but as a military-backed force on the ground with a more immediate stake in making a peace initiative work. Mr. Saed, of the Ahram Center, said that "the United States is now the 26th Middle East state," along with 22 Arab nations, Turkey, Iran and Israel.
Mohamed Kamal, a political scientist at Cairo University, said: "There are people who think it's really difficult to separate what's going on in Iraq with what's going on in Palestine. The United States can no longer afford to neglect the peace process, because if it fails to resolve the Middle East conflict, that will have dire consequences on its Iraq project."
"The new element here is American troops on the ground and they could easily be targets of resentment," Mr. Kamal added, recalling the 1983 suicide bombing in Lebanon that killed 241 marines in their barracks outside Beirut.
In advance of the conference, several Arab states have made clear that the road map, which includes provisions for a broader Arab-Israeli peace, should not be modified to meet Israeli objections.
The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, called for "serious measures to implement all its provisions," including a Saudi plan offering Israel normal ties with Arab states in return for total withdrawal from territories it occupied during the 1967 Middle East War.
Some remain to be convinced.
"Syria does not want to be a satellite in this orbit because there's no road map for a comprehensive peace in the region," Imad Fawzi Shueibi, a political scientist at Damascus University, said.
Syria has long insisted that Israel must withdraw from occupied territories, particularly the Golan Heights, as the price for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace. From this perspective, the newest road map ignores the bigger issue.
"The United States doesn't want a full package," Mr. Shueibi said in a telephone interview. "They want to divide this into different tracks."
Some see the meeting here as a trade-off. "The Arabs will say to Bush, `If you can deliver the Israelis, we will do our best to deliver the Palestinians,' " Mr. Kamal, of Cairo University, said. "But don't expect us to deliver the Palestinians without exerting pressure on Sharon and the Israelis."
That mistrust of Mr. Sharon permeates official policy, even in Egypt, which was the first Arab nation to make peace with Israel. "The Arab side has been offering and offering and offering, and the Arab side should be asking, `What am I getting in return?' " Mr. Osman, the presidential spokesman, said.
For many people, though, the United States is so closely identified with Israel that their interests are indistinguishable.
"We are taking a very negative image of Bush and America because of Sharon," Mr. Salam said in Cairo's Wadi-el-Nil teahouse. "Sharon has America in his hands. For us, Sharon is the image of the United States."
That same skepticism emerged from a conversation with Sanaa Salah, who runs the Hilton restaurant in downtown Cairo that has as its specialty a tangy blend of rice, macaroni, noodles, onions and tomatoes called kosheri.
If there is peace, she said: "It will be at the expense of Palestinians and Arabs in general. The Israelis will do anything to dominate the Palestinians to try to make them go away."
Sheik Saud al Ha-arinose complained, "Bush, he want to pave the road to Peace with a million Arab martyrs! We do not agree Bush get to pick the martyrs. We Saudi pick martyrs, send them to YOU."
Iraq: Speedbump or smelly grease patch on Road Map?
French Foreign Sounding Minister Villepain objected to the Road Map. "Thees Road Map, she has no whine from beginning to end. Where is zee Franch part, eh? We have no cheese, we see no whine, where to begin?"
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin was overheard negotiating with Donald Rumsfeld at a Swiss chateau high in the Alps. "Rumsfeld, you good German strong guy. We like to make you deal. We take care Chechens, you take care Arabs, one to one. We even give you Lebanon as good friend, and maybe we get Georgia too. Our Georgia. No. We don want Atlanta. Too hot."
Democratique Candidate Jean Kerry was seen in a small cafe on Rue St. Martin in the old quarter of Paris sipping a Dubonnet, daringly sans twist. "This tough guy stuff is really such a put on," sniffed Kerry. "Bush should go home and fix the ketchup market so we can all get on with the campaign. A guy has to eat, you know."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.