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I wonder when Sec of State Rice will have her MacNamara moment? KwC Rice's Tour of Mideast Yields Little Progress on
Key Issues By Robin Wright, Washington
Post Staff Writer, Sunday, October 8, 2006; A29 LONDON, Oct. 7 - It
was a tough week for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the Middle East. On
four issues pivotal to the future of the world's most volatile region, U.S.
diplomatic efforts made no visible progress or came up against unexpected
resistance during her five-day tour, according to Arab and Israeli officials
and analysts. On Iraq, Arab-Israeli peace, democracy
promotion and fostering a so-called moderate bloc of Arab states to stand
together against militancy, Rice pressed at each of six stops for new energy or
more decisive action. Many of the Arab leaders she met share U.S. fears about
the region's future, but there is a growing divide even with Washington's
closest allies over what needs to be done, at what pace, in what order and by
whom, according to Arab officials interviewed at each stop. Several Arab officials
and analysts privately dismissed Rice's tour as a cheerleading trip without
substance. Others questioned the viability of the Bush administration's Middle
East policy. "It is obvious
to anyone that U.S. policy built after 9/11 -- including Iraq and the 'you're
with us or against us' attitude -- has now come to a dead end," said Paul Salem, the U.S.-educated director of the new Beirut
center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and son of Lebanon's former pro-American
foreign minister. The United States and
the Arab world are now engaged in a chicken-and-egg argument over what happens
next. Arab governments - including Egypt,
Jordan, Saudi Arabia
and 5 oil-rich Persian Gulf sheikdoms -- all appealed to Rice to revive U.S. leadership to break
deadlocks on several fronts because they have so far been unable to do it
alone, Arab officials said. But Rice basically told governments at each stop that they must
first take difficult steps to create conditions more conducive to greater U.S.
involvement, U.S. officials said. Rice did make some
progress on a fifth issue, Iran,
on her last stop in London, where six major powers agreed Friday to pursue
sanctions for Tehran's failure to suspend nuclear enrichment, a process that
can be used to develop a nuclear weapon. But on that question, too, the road
ahead remains rocky for winning agreement at the U.N. Security Council on what
punitive measures to take, U.S. officials conceded. Rice insisted Friday
that her exploratory trip to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, the West Bank and two
Iraqi cities was beneficial as the Bush administration moves toward
"intensive" discussions about next steps after the month-long war between Hezbollah and
Israel. "I'm very glad I
came out at this time," she told reporters traveling with her. "I've
really enjoyed this trip to the Middle East, because I wanted to come out in
the post-Lebanon
period and get a real
sense of what people were thinking. . . . I have a much better sense of how the
Lebanese events and this period are affecting people's calculations on what
needs to be done." Rice acknowledged that
the Arabs and Israel appealed for
new momentum to break the escalating cycle of violence and political division
in several strategic countries. "This is an absolutely crucial
time in the Middle East, and I heard in every single place that this isn't a
time to stand
still," Rice said. "Everyone understands
that a lot is changing in the Middle East and that we need to have a positive
agenda." U.S. officials say
their goal is to find ways to fill the political vacuum that has developed in
the region -- before militants or Islamic radicals fill even more of it. Over
the past year, Hamas won parliamentary elections and formed a government in the
Palestinian territories, the Muslim Brotherhood became the largest legal
opposition force in Egypt, and Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah emerged as a
hero in the Muslim world for challenging Israel and surviving. Also, Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has taken some of the most defiant positions
adopted by his country's leadership since the early days after the 1979
revolution. Rice's trip, U.S.
officials said, was partly intended to signal that the Bush administration is
still fully engaged and interested, despite the growing unpopularity of the
Iraq war at home and election season questions about its broader Middle East
policy. But Rice's talks with nine Arab governments and Israel contrasted
starkly with her earlier visits in the lack of specific initiatives. A senior Egyptian official called U.S. policy
"increasingly
unrealistic." A wide range of senior
Arab officials, who all spoke on background because of sensitive diplomacy with
Washington, asserted that the
administration's brick-by-brick approach to transforming the Middle East is so
minimalist that it is unlikely to make significant progress during President
Bush's remaining time in office. They also complained that Bush's personal role
in the Middle East is nonexistent when compared with his early hands-on involvement
in bringing Arabs and Israelis together or his public promises to ensure an end
to more than six decades of war through a two-state solution. The greatest pressure
put on Rice at every stop was to do something to jump-start the moribund
Arab-Israeli peace process, which Arab leaders almost unanimously described as
the key to addressing other flash points as well. Yet Rice found herself negotiating some of the
same issues she was engaged in last November, such as movement of people and
trade in and out of the Gaza Strip. And Israeli withdrawal from parts of the
West Bank, which had been promised by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, is even
further away after the Lebanon war undermined his leverage and popularity. After Rice met with
Iraqi officials in Baghdad, some privately expressed concern about new tensions
with Washington over the pace and sequence of handling the major challenges
facing the government there, such as reconciliation and disarming militias.
They complained that the Bush administration was working on its own schedule and not taking into account the
potential for backlash among Iraqis if their leaders took controversial steps
precipitously. Senior Arab officials
and analysts also said U.S. efforts to promote democracy and foster an
anti-militant bloc were contradictory, because the moderates the United States
is trying to rally against radical Islamic groups are some of region's most
autocratic governments. In Arab
countries, said Salem, "the United States now looks more afraid
of elections than some of the governments themselves." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/07/AR2006100700699.html |
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