The very well-informed Boston University expert on Lebanon and the Middle East, Dick Norton, had a great catch on his “Speaking Truth to Power” blog yesterday: the text of the internal “Talking Points” (= spin) that the US State Dept HQ has been sending out to diplomats and consular officials around the world, regarding the imminent Annapolis meeting.
This spin-sheet is fascinating inasmuch as it can be understood as expressing a great deal of Condi Rice’s current actual hopes and planning for the Annapolis and post-Annapolis “process”.
However, though Condi and her boss might think they can control the whole of this process, I judge that it may well get beyond their control.
Back at the time of the last launch of a serious Israeli-Arab peacemaking process, in Madrid in 1991, the US stood at the height of its global power. The USSR was in the midst of long, four-year collapse into its constituent parts. The US was the Uberpower that had “won” the Cold war– and throughout the rest of the 1990s, it was able to control every aspect of the Israeli-Arab peacemaking diplomacy. (Which, guess what, got nowhere, while Israel continued implanting hundreds of thousands of additional settlers into the West Bank.)
But 2007 ain’t 1991. The US’s power position in the world has eroded considerably since then. As has– especially after summer 2006– the strategic utility of the military dominance that Israel continues to exercise over the whole of the Mashreq (Near East.)
In 1991, the Bush-Baker team at Madrid had the USSR sitting there as some kind of co-hosts. But really, that was a nearly wholly symbolic gesture. Two years later the USSR collapsed completely.
This year, the US has the other three members of the “Quartet” along in some kind of possibly co-hosting capacity. That’s Russia, the EU, and the UN. (The UN’s stance as “junior partner” to Washington in this peacemaking is highly anomalous and, I would say, not sustainable for very much longer.) We should not imagine that these three “partners” will all continue to be happy just to be Condi’s arm candy for very much longer. Matters for all parties, throughout the Middle East are far too serious for that; and the need to proactively pursue this chance for speedy final resolution of all the remaining strands of the Israeli-Arab conflict is correspondingly pressing.
I shall write more on this broader aspect of Annapolis in the days ahead. But for now, let’s look at the main dimensions of the spin that Dick Norton has caught for our edification:
Immediate comments on this:
- 1. No mention at all of the Syrian track. The whole of this spin-sheet is about the Israeli-Palestinian track. Note this weaselly clause, in partcular:
- Regional support is key to success and essential for a comprehensive Middle East peace. The international meeting in Annapolis is aimed to support an ongoing process and rally international support for the efforts of the Palestinians and the Israelis.
This is bad news for the Syrians, of course, who have for a long time been eager to resume and complete their long-stalled negotiations with Israel. But it is also bad news for everyone else. A US/Israeli peace effort that seeks mainly to split the Palestinians off from the Syrians and play one against the other is a recipe for failure on all tracks. A successful Israeli-Syrian agreement, reached in parallel with a successful Palestinian-Israeli agreement, would also bring in its train a rapid Israeli-Lebanese peace– and Israel would then be at peace with all its neighbors!
Imagine that! That was the vision held up at Madrid, and it is still the most compelling, and most viable, vision that we can hold up today.
2. No mention by name of the President. In the section on “U.S. commitment,” the spin-sheet refers only to actions undertaken by Rice. The US stance would be a lot more convincing if the Pres had committed his full power to this process. How can we be assured that that Dick Cheney is not still busy machinating hard against it behind the scenes?
3. Ignorance and boilerplate vagueness. Okay, I know it was the Thanksgiving Day weekend and probably lots of people in Condi’s spin-shop were not in the office… But look at this little sub-clause: “the stablishment [sic] of a Palestinian state for the first time in many years.” How sloppy! Folks: There has never been a Palestinian state yet!
Also, look at this, for vagueness: “Much has been said over a long period of time about critical issues like border, refugees and Jerusalem.” Yes? And what kind of conclusion does the US think these discussions ought to come to? How about some recognition that a lot of fine preliminary work has been done on all these issues in the years since 1991, so with good will and determination they should not be too hard to resolve?
I should note, though, that both the global and regional balances have undergone significant, though still limited, shifts since the time the Geneva and Nusseibeh-Ayalon formulas emerged back in 2003, so the US and Israel will no longer be so able to defend the interests of the Israeli settlers as they were back then. That is, a politically sustainable outcome reached in 2007-2008 would probably be closer to the “international law” position and the Green Line than Geneva or Nusseibeh-Ayalon were…
Anyway, my bottom line on “Annapolis” today: Let’s wait and see whether it really develops into a worldwide effort to get the whole of the Israeli-Arab conflict resolved.
If it does, that’s good for everybody. Everybody. If it doesn’t, it will be certainly be bad for everyone concerned.
Helena’s incisive comment on the “talking points” hits the nail on the head, namely that the Annapolis meeting is ill-prepared and incomplete. We have yet to hear, as Helena notes, a firm committment by President Bush to this Rice-propelled process. Indeed, Annapolis is widely viewed in Washington circles as “Condi’s show.”
It will be fascinating to see whether the U.S. will succeed in evading the Syria track at Annapolis.
The $64 question though is whether Mahmoud Abbas will be strengthened by this meeting or weakened? It will take more than a few talking points to bolster the already weak Abu Mazen.
And here has to be one of the most one-sided CSMonitor articles ever written by Howie LaFranchi:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1126/p01s03-usfp.html
Notice his sources — every single one of them a key player in the DC pro-Israel machine (of varying degrees). What a comedy….. For these chaps, it’s “all about Iran.” (and let’s change the subject so that Israel never comes up) With this sort of mindset, nothing will happen — as perhaps is the entire idea. (and LaFranchi bought it.)
As for the CSMonitor, this sort of “reporting” is simply scandalous. For decades, the Monitor was one of the best, most balanced papers on the Middle East. This article is the antithesis to that tradition. Has there been a coup in CS church?
What happens is, the American President who has spent most of his term mindlessly promoting the Zionist agenda decides he needs a big finish to cap what he (and perhaps he alone) still sees as a record of foreign policy successes. So he figures he can get the Israelis, who “owe him one,” to make a few concessions that the Palestinians will have to accept ’cause they haven’t got any better choices, and bingo, he gets credit for solving another big problem! Of course this is hopelessly naive and egotistical in a peculiarly American way. No one is going to change their game to help an American President burnish his “legacy.” But try telling that to the American President.