THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 163, August 19, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
BUSH'S GIFT TO OBAMA
By Dr. Steven J. Rosen
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA & U.S. MIDDLE EAST POLICY: OBAMA'S AUDACITY OF HOPE, AS REGARDS THE
OUTCOME OF DIRECT TALKS BETWEEN ISRAELIS & PALESTINIANS -- THE ZONE OF THE ATTAINABLE FOR OBAMA -- CAN
OBAMA SCALE BACK HIS OBJECTIVES TO MORE LIMITED STEPS THAT CAN BE ACHIEVED, BUT FALL SHORT OF ENDING THE
ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT FOREVER & TRANSFORMING THE MIDDLE EASTERN REGION? ISRAELI PRIME
MINISTER
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU & THE FEASIBILITY OF PALESTINIAN SOVEREIGN STATEHOOD -- THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY &
INTERIM ARRANGEMENTS FOR PEACE -- OBAMA & THE ROADMAP TO PEACE
FULL STORY:
The opening of direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians, rumored for weeks, is likely to put the spotlight back on U.S.
President Barack Obama's Middle East policy. That isn't necessarily a good thing. The Israeli public does not trust him
and will be looking for signals of his intentions. If he does not restore confidence in the role of the United States, it is hard
to see how American mediation can succeed. Conversely, the Palestinians will be looking for signs that he is willing to
lean on Israel, something the "professional Left" of his own party -- to borrow a phrase from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
-- also would love to see.
No President has ever raised expectations so high with promises to transform the region through personal involvement
and fresh ideas. Obama won the Office of President partly by feeding the belief that the Middle East problem could be
solved, if only Americans had a president, like himself, who was ready to make a commitment, not one like George W.
Bush, who, Obama asserted, had ignored the problem.
Almost no one in the region shares Obama's audacity of hope. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas enters the talks as
the reluctant dragon who wishes he did not have to be there. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would like to take
some significant steps to achieve a more stable relationship with Israel's most immediate neighbors, but neither he nor the
Israeli public believes that sweeping steps like those advocated by many in the Obama entourage can be taken without
unacceptable levels of risk to Israel's security.
Can Obama scale back his objectives to more limited steps that can be achieved, but fall short of ending the conflict
forever and transforming the region? Netanyahu is coming to the talks with ideas that can measurably improve the lives
of the Palestinian people and move them toward their objective of a sovereign Palestinian state with territorial contiguity.
But, under the circumstances that exist today, the zone of the attainable for Obama will fall short of the "Clinton
Parameters" that Yasir Arafat rejected in 2000 at Camp David, not to mention the more ambitious ideas urged upon this
administration by a thousand "Progressive" (Liberal Leftist) voices.
The Palestinians deeply distrust interim arrangements, and they have frequently asserted that they will not enter another
interim agreement. For example, Abbas told then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on August 31, 2008, that the
Palestinians would accept nothing less than a complete settlement. "Either we agree on all issues, or no agreement at all."
Abbas' Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, reiterated the point three times in December, 2009:
"We strenuously reject ... solutions involving interim
arrangements ... We have no intention of continuing
with the formula of interim arrangement.... We will
reject every attempt to once again enter ... longterm
interim arrangements."
But the Palestinian Authority might not hew to this uncreative position if intelligent American mediation led the way.
Abbas accepted the Quartet's Middle East Roadmap in 2003, knowing that it called very clearly and explicitly for an
interim arrangement with a Palestinian state having "provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty ... as a way
station to a permanent status settlement." The Roadmap made this interim Palestinian state Phase II of the process, after
Phase I ("Ending Terror and Violence, Normalizing Palestinian Life, and Building Palestinian Institutions") and before
Phase III ("Permanent Status Agreement and the End of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.") During Phase II, the Quartet
members are to "promote international recognition" of the provisional state, "including possible UN membership." And,
during this period of the Palestinian state with provisional borders, the Arab states are to "restore pre-Intifada links to
Israel (trade offices, etc.)" and "revive multilateral engagement" with Israel "on issues including regional water
resources, environment, economic development, refugees, and arms-control issues." In other words, the Palestinians
have already accepted the idea of "interim arrangements." (Palestinian objections to interim agreements have been a
continuing feature of Middle East diplomacy, but the record is replete with past examples where they did in fact agree
to the step-by-step approach.)
Will Obama build on this recorded agreement to pass through an interim stage, or will he throw it away in a headlong
rush to the dream of a millennial rearrangement?
The Roadmap that the Palestinians accepted is the only document providing a pathway to a Palestinian state ever
accepted by all the parties involved in Middle East peace negotiations. It was issued by the Quartet, consisting of the
United States, the European Union, Russia, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations on April 30, 2003. Then it
was endorsed unanimously by the UN Security Council (including Syria!) in Resolution 1515 on November 20, 2003. It
was endorsed again by the Quartet on March 19, 2010. It was accepted "without any reservations" by Abbas at the
Middle East peace summit in Aqaba, Jordan, on June 4, 2003. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon accepted it on May 23,
2003, and Sharon's government, by a majority vote, accepted it on May 25, 2003. Both sides are bound by the Roadmap,
and it does not require a fresh endorsement by either. It is one of the signed written commitments of the Palestinian
government on which the peace process is based today.
Obama could construct an interim agreement on the "bottom up" approach of Salim Fayyad, who is building the
institutions of Palestinian statehood in the West Bank in his capacity as Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority.
Israel is already cooperating importantly with this process, by lifting most of the Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks,
even where there is an element of risk in trusting Palestinian security forces, instead of the Israeli army. Netanyahu is
prepared to go further in this direction. Here is a concrete foundation on which Obama could stand, instead of chasing
an illusion beyond anyone's reach.
The Security Council could also play a role, if either Abbas or Netanyahu were to face internal political obstacles to an
interim agreement. Egypt's Foreign Minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said on July 3, 2010, that the Arab League will turn
to the Council to declare an independent Palestinian state, if peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians do not
bear fruit by September of this year. This could be an entirely unconstructive step if the Security Council called for
arrangements that the people of Israel believed would entail intolerable risks, like going back to the 1967 armistice line.
But Aboul Gheit also said that taking the issue to the Security Council would be done in reference to Resolution 1515,
the 2003 statement endorsing the Roadmap. If a new resolution were to help the parties take the constructive but
difficult step of creating an interim Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty, the
Security Council could be a plus rather than a minus.
Will Obama take the advice of the pressure-on-Israel enthusiasts who twice led him into the cul-de-sac of the "freeze
on natural growth" of settlements? If he does, we are headed for another nasty squall with no constructive outcome.
He has another choice, staring right at him in the Roadmap. Does the Roadmap's provenance in the hated Bush
administration make it so repulsive to this administration that it will miss the opportunity Bush left him?
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Steven J. Rosen heads the Washington Project of the Middle East Forum. He holds a Ph.D. degree from the Maxwell School of
Diplomacy at Syracuse University. From 1968 to 1978, Dr. Rosen taught Political Science and International Relations at several universities
-- the University of Pittsburgh, Brandeis University, and the Australian National University. From 1978 to 1982, he was Associate Director
of the National Security Strategies Program at the RAND Corporation. From 1982 to 2005, he was Director of Foreign Policy Issues at the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In 2009, he joined the Middle East Forum's staff as a visiting fellow, with special
responsibility for U.S. foreign policy. Dr. Rosen, along with Dr. Walter S. Jones, co-authored a bestselling textbook, The Logic of
International Relations, which went through five editions from 1974 to 1982.
The foregoing article by Dr. Rosen was originally published in Foreign Policy, August 18, 2010, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(URL: http://www.meforum.org/2723/bush-gift-to-obama)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
August 19, 2010
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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