The Smokescreen That Is the Road Map

by Steve

Most of the major US papers have been reporting in a positive light over the last four days the apparent agreement by Israel to accept the “Road Map” for peace developed by the US, the EU, and the UN after it looked like such a plan would never be acted upon in the aftermath of the Iraq occupation. Most of the papers, to be expected by the fawning American media, have showered some praise on the Bush Administration for pushing both sides to an agreement to move ahead. But as I pointed out before the holiday weekend, a closer look at what has actually transpired raises concerns that this is nothing more than a ploy by Likud to stall for time and not show up George Bush.

The Likudites still take the position that the next steps are for the Palestinians to disarm the militias and stop the terror strikes. But the fatal flaw in the whole scenario laid out by Sharon and designed by Bush himself months ago was when Bush insisted that the Palestinians set up another leader to negotiate with other than Yassir Arafat. Bush insisted that the US would not re-engage until the Palestinians held elections and named a Prime Minister. But this is doomed to fail because the new prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, after months of Israeli Defense Force attacks on the law enforcement infrastructure in the occupied territories, has no means at all to reign in the militias, and has no leverage with the groups tied to Arafat. Bush and Sharon knew that they had created this self-defeating situation when they placed this demand on the Palestinians. But it is a win-win for both of them: it allows Rove to show Bush as a statesman trying to solve a problem that his laziness has created, and for Sharon it allows him to be seen as working for a peace that cannot be delivered under the current circumstances.

Despite the Israeli Cabinet’s decision to go forward, various media accounts show that there is vast disagreement within the Sharon government as to what will be required of the Israelis and what will happen next. And it is clear that the Sharon government is only pleasing the US at this point in an effort to stall for time.

Palestinian officials say they're ready to start working through the phases of the road map. That would begin, they said, with each side issuing a statement forswearing violence and recognizing the other state's right to exist.

"They both have to issue statements," said Erekat, who helped negotiate the peace plan. "We have the road map written in English; it's very clear."

"The two sides have to take simultaneous steps," Palestinian Labor Minister Ghassan Khatib agreed.

But Israelis say the Palestinians are to make the first move. Asked about the interpretation of Palestinians like Erekat and Khatib, Sharon advisor Raanan Gissin said one word: "Nonsense."

In a direct clash with Palestinian expectations, Israeli officials continue to repeat the ultimatum they've used for weeks: That they won't dismantle outposts, won't pull their soldiers out of Palestinian territory — won't make any sacrifices at all — until Palestinians disarm and jail militants, stop incitement and close militia offices.

"We've done our part; now the Palestinians have to take action," Gissin said. "When we reach the road map, then both sides have to make painful concessions. But before we reach that phase there has to be a real fight against terror."

A fight that cannot be won by Abbas under the terms set up by Bush. Yet Bush, now feeling full of himself as a world statesman based entirely upon military threats and “victories” rather than actual diplomatic successes, feels he can push the process along by participating in a summit in Egypt this summer to get Israel and the Palestinians to move towards peace, an act of engagement that Bush criticized Bill Clinton for.

It is questionable if the summit will ever take place, since the Palestinians cannot deliver on one of the prerequisites for the meeting. And what experience or leverage does Bush have to wade into this situation, besides running a baseball team and failed oil companies? Can you imagine him telling Sharon to do something or else? Can you imagine him telling Abbas that if he doesn’t do the impossible (controlling the terrorists with no police force and an angry Arafat) that he will turn loose the US military on Syria and Iran (well, actually I can imagine that, and think he will do that, but not in the context of this summit.)

The fact is that Bush as a summiteer is a joke. When you have built your entire claim to fame on military force and not on the give and take of diplomacy, you can only succeed so far with people who don’t care about your military force. There are factions in the Middle East that want the US to go after Syria and Iran, but for different reasons. The Israelis want the PNAC agenda to go forward and take care of these other problems for them. They assume that Bush will not really force concessions from Sharon before the 2004 elections, lest the Likudites decide to stall and wait to see how a Lieberman candidacy may help them keep digging their heels in. And for Al Qaeda and Bin Laden, any move against Syria or Iran only helps them destabilize Arab regimes and incite populations in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iraq.

Of course Bush may really be serious about bringing peace to the Middle East, under Karl Rove’s grand plan of selling Bush as statesman for the 2004 race. But because of the late start in this alleged concern for peace in the region, after eight critical months of disengagement prior to 9/11, and then the coalition-wrecking invasion of Iraq which undid any real chance of a multi-national approach to peace and trust in the US’s real motives amongst the Arab world, Bush has set himself up for problems of his own making.

And it does not help that Bush is ready to take up where he left off on the PNAC agenda by threatening Iran again about their alleged harboring of the Al Qaeda attackers who carried out the Saudi bombings. But after the PNAC deception and phony intelligence that led up to the invasion, no one including the Arab world believes that Bush is truly concerned about stopping terrorism and bringing peace to the Middle East.

That is why a charletan like Bush will find it so difficult to be taken seriously as a statesman by the rest of the world. His only claim to fame is that he has the best toys in the neigborhood and has shown a cynical willingness to use them.

Until he confronts the Saudis themselves over their assistance of Al Qaeda and the Israelis themselves over their counterproductive moves to calm the region down, and most importantly until he shows that he is not owned by the PNAC crowd, he cannot escape the label of being a stooge for Likud and his own warmongering PNAC nutcases that make up his foreign policy team.