Too bad, AraFat ... You could have been a modern day Pharaoh .. Instead, you have been flung onto the dung pile of failed leaders.
By Nathan Guttman
The official announcement yesterday from the White House about U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to the Middle East symbolizes the fall of the last fortress of the "old Bush," the Bush of the 2000 election campaign who derided "nation building" and presidential efforts to resolve foreign conflicts.
The old Bush would never have gone on a mission to mediate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a mission that even the most diehard optimists in the American capital believe has slim chances of success. The old Bush regarded the energy and time his predecessor Bill Clinton invested in the issue as a tactical and strategic mistake that eroded his stature and turned out to be hopeless. Only a year ago, Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer derided Clinton's peacemaking efforts as an attempt to "shoot the moon," leaving the administration with zero results.
But as the third year of his presidency nears completion, Bush has found himself forced to gradually adopt more elements of Clinton's policy, that very policy of active American involvement in foreign conflicts. After attacking Democratic candidate Al Gore in the 2000 presidential campaign for his intention to involve the United States in nation building efforts on distant continents, Bush is now involved over his head in nation building in Iraq and considering a regime change in Iran.
Now a new stage has arrived with Bush marching straight into the quagmire of the Middle East, just like Clinton did. He is even going back to the scene of a key way-station on Clinton's path - Sharm el Sheikh - where the former American president convened pro-American Arab leaders with Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat after a wave of Hamas bombings in 1996 in a failed last-ditch effort to help the Labor Party leader beat a surging Benjamin Netanyahu in the Israeli elections later that year.
The president's advisers explain that Bush has not changed his approach, but he has understood that the circumstances are now ripe for an opportunity that should not be missed. They say that so far, the president has refrained from becoming personally involved, because he didn't think there was much point as long as Arafat was representing the Palestinians. Now, with a new Palestinian government, Bush believes that even if the chances are slim, his active involvement could move something. Regional circumstances have changed with the Iraq war, and Bush believes that by getting involved, he can create a momentum that will get the Israelis and Palestinians back on the dialogue track, even if they don't touch on problematic issues like refugees, Jerusalem and the permanent borders.
The president emphasizes in every conversation he has with Israeli representatives and others that he is getting involved, and that he plans to make sure his road map does not find itself in the same pile with all the plans from Mitchell to Zinni, which were never implemented. His advisers and senior administration officials say all the time now that the president is determined to do something about the matter.
The White House delayed announcing the trip and the summits. The president and his officials know very well that the minute the announcement was made, the seeds were planted for someone to try to sabotage the move, via a terror attack and reactions to the attack. All the president's envoys have been through that experience when they arrived in the country. Fleischer yesterday warned that the summit would take place only if "all the parties meet their commitments," leaving a small opening for a change in plans in case violence flares up.
From the minute Bush begins to mediate personally in the Middle East, there will be no return. He is aware that the fate of the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will become part of his political fate as soon as the images of the three-way handshake in Aqaba are released to the world. Success will be his, but he won't be able to blame failure on his secretary of state.