Mr. Bush Hangs Back

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

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It looks like President Bush may take a different course out of Annapolis than either President Clinton or his father took under similar circumstances. That is the insight we took from an exegesis by the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Robert Satloff, who has, even as the envoys were palavering, circulated a piece called: “Bush at Annapolis: Hints About the Final Thirteen Months.” It might, he reckons, have seemed as 43 were taking a page out of 41’s playbook or 42’s. Mr. Clinton gambled much of his presidency on seeking an agreement between the government in Jerusalem and the Palestinian Arabs, only to fall short. Bush Pere famously clashed with Israel over settlements expansion.

A closer reading of Mr. Bush’s remarks this week, as well as at the joint declaration, suggests that the 43rd president is not going to throw himself heart and soul into racing the clock to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian deal before the end of his term, thirteen months from now. According to Mr. Satloff, the most significant aspect of the event was that the president “offered little sign he plans to devote the final months of his administration to a high-stakes personal quest for a permanent peace treaty between the two parties,” though the joint declaration expresses agreement that America will “‘monitor and judge’ the extent to which each fulfills commitments” and that “‘implementation of the future peace treaty will be subject to the implementation of the Roadmap, as judged by the United States.'”

This puts America in an old/new position, wresting the process away from the Quartet: the United Nations, the E.U., America, and Russia. Mr. Satloff reckons that the use of the word “judge” twice is a broad hint that the Bush administration is prepared to be more active and vocal in identifying noncompliance than it was in the past, setting up the possibility of clashes with an Israeli government over settlements policy. Both the showy diplomacy as well as the repositioning of the administration as a judge independent of both parties reminds us of the two previous administrations. Unlike his two predecessors, Mr. Bush will not, Mr. Satloff believes, “be throwing the dice on a gamble to achieve a legacy of success in the Middle East peace process in the final year of his presidency.”

Mr. Bush replaced Secretary Rice’s formulation that “now is the time for a Palestinian state” with “now is precisely the right time to begin these negotiations.” He asked the parties to “show patience and flexibility” and predicted long and arduous labor before there is light at the end of tunnel. Mr Bush did not come off as believing that Mideast peace is “tantalizingly close,” Mr. Satloff writes. Mr. Bush may think that “handing the baton of a functioning peace process to his successor would itself constitute success.” Palestinians and Arab states will mark Mr. Bush’s pledge that America will remain committed not only “to the security of Israel as a Jewish state,” but also to Israel as “a homeland for the Jewish people.”

Mr. Satloff, a shrewd observer, notes that such language “goes beyond Bush’s own words in his April 14, 2004, letter to then-prime minister Ariel Sharon and harkens back to the language of the landmark Balfour Declaration promulgated by Britain ninety years ago this month.” It also comes shortly after Palestinian negotiators and leading officials of several Arab states said they would never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. In other words, Mr. Bush is smarter than the elites have given him credit for. He moved into the White House just as an extensive and intensive diplomatic push to secure a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians fell apart and the second intifada began. An Israeli prime minister who worked with Mr. Clinton, Ehud Barak, was about to be defeated by Mr. Sharon. There were tremendous temptations for Mr. Bush to dive in the way his father and Mr. Clinton did. But he has made his mark by hanging back and keeping his eye on a larger prize.

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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