Moderator - This is a farce democracy agenda
our President is pursuing? Decisions are made for the
people without their presence? Every one is out to
party, except the affected party. The Palestinians of
Gaza or their representative must be there for us to be
sincere with spreading democracy. It is about them as
much about the Palestinians of the west bank and we are
calling this conference for them, without them? How
arrogant can we be to believe that we are right, as we
are the might!
Behind Mideast summit – the Iran factor
The Annapolis talks on Tuesday are
shadowed by a nation not there.
By
Howard LaFranchi Staff writer of The Christian
Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1126/p01s03-usfp.html?page=1
WASHINGTON - When the Bush administration holds a
meeting this week to formally relaunch the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process, one uninvited guest
will be looming large over everyone's shoulder: Iran.
Tuesday's meeting in Annapolis, Md., was once envisioned
as a three-day conference to kick off the negotiation of
final-status issues. It's now an incredibly shrinking
24-hour gathering, but its occurrence at all is in no
small measure a result of the rise of Iran and its brand
of radical Islam in the Middle East.
Consider how Iran plays into the picture for the
following players:
• If President Bush has finally bought into a process he
eschewed for seven years, it is not so much because he
really believes now is a propitious moment for progress
on peace. Instead, analysts say, Mr. Bush sees the need
to contain Iran. He also sees how bringing Arab
moderates to the table with Israel could work toward
that goal.
• Saudi Arabia said it would attend a conference only if
it addresses the core issues for establishing a
Palestinian state. That won't happen, but still Riyadh
will attend – in large part because the Saudis see as
desirable any action that ties the United States into
the region and challenges Iran's rise.
• And the attendance of Syria – something that both the
Bush administration and Israel hoped for – reflects how
Damascus is seeking to hedge its bets after having
aligned itself increasingly with the regime in Tehran.
For the US, moderate Arab states, Israel, and the
Palestinian supporters of Mahmoud Abbas, "finding a way
to counter the threat from Tehran … is fueling this
peace meeting more than any other factor," says Martin
Indyk, a former US negotiator on the Middle East who is
now director of the Brookings Institution's Saban Center
on the Middle East in Washington.
Expectations for the Annapolis meeting, to be held at
the US Naval Academy in Maryland's capital, are "lower
than the Dead Sea," says David Makovsky, director of the
project on the Middle East Peace Process at the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Neither
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert nor the Palestinian
president, Mr. Abbas, is coming from a position of
domestic political strength that would allow for
compromise.
The best to be expected from the gathering may be a
"road map-plus" formula, Mr. Makovsky says. Under such a
scenario, the parties would formally agree to undertake
steps – security measures on the Palestinian side, a
settlement freeze and steps easing Palestinian living
conditions for the Israelis – while launching
final-status negotiations on issues like refugees and
Jerusalem.
Still, the meeting will draw participants anxious for
anything that might stall Iran's hegemonic rise in the
region, Makovsky says.
The reputation of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
has risen in the Palestinian territories and the region
as he has advocated violence over accommodation to
address the Palestinians' plight. He has also skewered
moderate Arab leaders for agreeing to work with Israel
on peace.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has focused
much of her attention this year on Iran containment,
hopes to use the Annapolis meeting to "pull Syria out of
Tehran's orbit," Makovsky says. As one Arab diplomat
told Makovsky, the real purpose of Annapolis is to "take
the Palestinian card out of Ahmadinejad's hand," he
notes.
But not everyone is so sure the Annapolis meeting will
have the desired geopolitical impact, while some even
caution that it could end up playing into Tehran's
hands.
"This is rigged for Iran to win," says David Wurmser, a
former Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick
Cheney.
The objective of Tehran and in particular Mr.
Ahmadinejad is to stoke a "civilizational struggle,"
pitting a weak and compliant Islam that is tethered to
the West against an aggressive and resurgent Islam, Mr.
Wurmser says. In that context, it actually serves Iran's
purposes if a "humiliated" Arab world joins Israel at
the conference table and doesn't receive anything
concrete in return.
If the Saudis, Egyptians, and Jordanians are seen to
"march off to Annapolis to surrender" before the US and
Israel, Wurmser says, "that could be a greater gift to
the Iranians than anything else Iran could achieve."
Others are not so categoric, but do see cracks in
Secretary Rice's strategy of containing Iran with a
relaunched Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
The idea that a convergence created by a fear of Iran
could compel the parties to make unprecedented
concessions has "elements of truth," says Dennis Ross, a
fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy
and former peace-process coordinator for the Clinton
administration. But that vision, he says, fails to grasp
another reality: that Iran's rise is seen by many in the
region through the "prism" of the Sunni-Shiite divide.
One result of that particular perspective is that Sunni
states like Saudi Arabia are still holding out the
possibility of producing a bridge between Abbas's
moderate Fatah organization and the radical Hamas, which
took control of Gaza after it won elections in January.
Hamas is a Sunni organization but has relied
increasingly on support from Shiite Iran as the
international community has sought to isolate it.
"The assumption that a common threat would produce a
common approach faltered," Mr. Ross says.
The Annapolis meeting will actually kick off with a
dinner at the State Department Monday, when Bush is to
hold White House talks with Mr. Olmert and Abbas. Bush
is also scheduled to wrap up the event Wednesday with
further talks with the two key leaders.
The impact of Annapolis will really be in what comes
after it, experts say. For clues on that, most will be
watching for two things: who actually attends the
meeting and what Bush says in the speech he will give in
Annapolis on Tuesday.
Rice pressed hard for Saudi Arabia to send its foreign
minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, as a sign of its
commitment to the process. He will attend, though
somewhat grudgingly.
Likewise, the administration wanted Syria to send its
foreign minister and publicly assured it that the
Annapolis microphone would be open to them to put their
chief concern with the Israelis – the occupied Golan
Heights – on the conference table. But Syria's
announcement that it will settle for sending its deputy
foreign minister, Faysal Mekdad, reflects a hedging of
its bets: While Damascus holds out hope for improved
relations with Washington, and wishes to demonstrate
some distance from Tehran, experts say, it does not to
appear to be playing wholly into the US game plan.
As for Bush's speech, the key will be if the president
sets out any kind of an agenda and timeline for the
peace process – and if he outlines any of the tough
issues to be addressed with specifics. Mr. Indyk of the
Brookings Institution says he will watch for any mention
of the "territorial compensation" the Palestinians can
expect in return for the West Bank settlement blocks
that Israel will not be asked to hand over to a new
Palestine.
And then, what mention does Bush make of a follow-up
agenda to Annapolis? Many ears will be attuned to any
reference to a review conference by which point certain
progress would be expected. Indyk says talk is already
circulating of such a conference occurring in Moscow.
Noting that the US and the international community are
basically "reinstating a process after seven years of
not having a process," Ross says the crucial question
will be: "What is the day-after strategy?"
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1126/p01s03-usfp.html?page=1
