Bush's Promised Mideast Agreement Still Mission Unaccomplished

By Janine Zacharia and Jonathan Ferziger

May 12 (Bloomberg) -- Six years after President George W. Bush's historic pledge to help create a Palestinian state, his habit of delving into Middle East peacemaking in fits and starts may yield little on the ground when he leaves office.

Bush heads to the region tomorrow, on what will probably be his last trip there as president, mainly to celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary. While the president says he still wants to ease the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, years of U.S. neglect have diminished that prospect.

``You invest in what you care about,'' says Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. negotiator and author of ``The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli peace.'' ``They never believed that the pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace was a critical national interest.''

With eight months left in his presidency, Bush says he is going to the region to help come ``up with the vision'' of what a Palestinian nation might look like after he leaves. That is basically where U.S. efforts were in 2000, when President Bill Clinton failed after intensive direct talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to win agreement on a Palestinian homeland.

Speaking in the White House Rose Garden in 2002, Bush pledged to pursue ``the vision of a Palestinian state.'' A year later, he ordered the invasion of Iraq, and the Palestinian issue dropped off the American agenda.

`The Great Disengager'

Bush has been ``the great disengager,'' says Miller, who mediated between Arabs and Israelis in Republican and Democratic administrations. ``Almost nothing'' has occurred, he says, even though Bush, 61, hosted a November summit in Annapolis, Maryland, intended to revive Mideast diplomacy.

The belated U.S. diplomatic effort has run into a host of obstacles. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is distracted by a corruption probe that may lead to his indictment. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who took office after Arafat's death, governs only the West Bank, while the rival Islamic movement Hamas, branded as terrorist by the U.S. for violent opposition to a peace accord, rules more than 1 million people in the Gaza Strip and fires rockets at Israeli towns.

While Palestinians are fed up with Israeli checkpoints that hamper commerce, some of their allies in the Israeli peace camp, after the attacks from Gaza, are losing faith in the two-state solution.

Out of Reach

Even the outline of a peace agreement is out of reach, says Gilad Sher, who was the chief Israeli negotiator during the 2000 Camp David peace talks brokered by Clinton.

Anat Kurz, a senior researcher at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, says any kind of agreement reached between Abbas and Olmert, 62, will be ``meaningless'' because ``the key is implementation, and that's something they can't do.''

Bush's top officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, say they recognize these difficulties. Rice, after four trips to Israel this year, says no deal will be implemented before Bush leaves office.

Her main objective has been to try to persuade Israel to open checkpoints in the West Bank to ease Palestinian movement and bolster the Palestinian economy, rather than refereeing disputes over the future of Jerusalem and borders.

Bush's trip to Israel will be filled with symbolic observances, rather than peace bargaining. His celebration of Israeli statehood will include a visit to Masada, the ancient fortress along the Dead Sea where Jews committed mass suicide after holding out against the Roman army.

No `Big' Meeting

Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, told reporters in Washington on May 7 that ``this didn't seem the time for a big, high-level, three-way'' meeting with Abbas and Olmert.

Overall, Bush has defined the U.S. role as more of an observer than an intermediary, a shift from past administrations.

``I think the role that we have assumed, and that is most useful to play, is to be supportive of what is essentially a bilateral process between the Palestinians and the Israelis,'' Rice, 53, said earlier this month.

Abbas, 73, left a White House meeting with Bush last month disappointed that the president isn't publicly articulating how the U.S. views the borders of a future Palestinian state.

``The situation looks gloomy,'' the Palestinian envoy in Washington, Afif Safieh, said in an interview. ``The American administration seems still undecided'' as to whether it wants to be ``as assertive as a successful process needs it to be.''

A Wide Gap

Nabil Abu Rudeina, Abbas's spokesman, says that ``in spite of all President Bush's efforts, the gap is still very wide between us and the Israelis.'' The Americans, he says, ``have to be more active'' and ``apply more pressure on the Israelis'' to stop the expansion of settlements in the West Bank.

The division among the Palestinians also shadows the peace effort. Bush has dismissed the idea, promoted by former President Jimmy Carter, that the U.S. should talk to Hamas, which Bush said is ``trying to destabilize and create chaos and confusion.'' Carter, 83, conferred with Hamas's leadership and said they may accept Israel's right to exist.

While rejecting U.S. contacts with Hamas, Bush has sanctioned an Egyptian mediation effort to end rocket attacks on Israel so some form of negotiations can go forward.

After a three-day visit to Israel, Bush will travel to Saudi Arabia and to the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh to address the World Economic Forum and confer with Arab leaders.

Oil Politics

In Saudi Arabia, Bush again will ask the world's top oil exporter to pump more crude. Oil closed at a record $125.96 a barrel on May 9, and the surging cost of gasoline has become a presidential campaign issue in the U.S.

``Is he going to get anything out of it on the oil issue? The answer is almost certainly not,'' says Simon Henderson, director of the Gulf and Energy Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. ``He gets nothing out of going to Saudi Arabia other than embarrassment.''

Bush is likely to be similarly stymied in his appeals to Israeli and Palestinian leaders to settle their differences. With the likelihood of a final peace off the table, analysts say the best Bush can hope for is to keep negotiations alive.

The ``strategic objective of the Bush administration until the end of the year'' is clear, Miller says: ``stability on paper and stability on the ground. Even in the land of miracles, that would be a miracle.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Janine Zacharia in Washington at jzacharia@bloomberg.net ; Jonathan Ferziger in Tel Aviv at jferziger@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 11, 2008 17:00 EDT

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