REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The Bush Two-Step
His Mideast policy has everyone confused. Let's hope that's the idea.
Either President Bush can't make up his mind, or he is running one of the most devilishly clever Middle East policy acts since Richard Nixon last dined with Henry Kissinger. In Texas, we suppose they'd call the latter interpretation the two-step.
On the one hand, Mr. Bush says Ariel Sharon is a "man of peace," and that the U.S. will never abandon Israel. He winked for two weeks as the Israeli Prime Minister continued his siege of the West Bank after the President had first said "enough is enough"; he's also implied that Mr. Sharon will be able to repeat his anti-terror sweep if there are more suicide bombers. And he's even tolerated (encouraged?) a Pentagon leak suggesting that planning is proceeding apace for an invasion of Iraq, either later this year or next.
On the other hand, this weekend Mr. Bush also leaned on Mr. Sharon to release Yasser Arafat from house arrest in Ramallah, even though the Israeli leader clearly thinks there can be no peace as long as the aging terrorist is the Palestinian leader. The President entertained Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah at his Crawford ranch. And he offered support for the Saudi peace plan despite outrageous Saudi saber-rattling through the media about playing the oil card. As if to compete with the Pentagon leak, State Department sources also complained to the Washington Post that the Pentagon is undercutting Colin Powell's Mideast peace-making.
This is some diplomatic dance, and if it has everyone confused we can only hope that's the point. The President's critics worry that all of this shows a man who can't decide among his strong foreign-policy advisers. But Mr. Bush has shown no little skill at co-optation, as he did for example in maneuvering the U.S. out of the ABM Treaty last year.
Everyone said that would never happen because the whole world opposed it. Yet somehow after September 11 and several Bush meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, that opposition melted away. Michigan Democrat Carl Levin still doesn't know what hit him.
It's possible Mr. Bush is playing a similar game now. Maybe he's keeping his eye on the main prize, which is deposing Saddam Hussein, but in the meantime feels he must play a balancing act in Palestine. So Mr. Powell is his good cop, tasked with mollifying the Arabs until the campaign against Iraq becomes inevitable. The President lets Mr. Sharon do enough to defend his country from suicide bombers but not so much that it inspires an anti-American Arab revolt. It's worth pointing out that this view of events is also the one many Arabs themselves seem to believe.
Where this game falls apart is if Mr. Bush really comes to think he can bring peace to Palestine through the offices of Mr. Arafat. The President hinted at that conceit when he said, on Sunday, that Mr. Arafat is "now free to move around and free to lead, and we expect him to do so." Mr. Arafat has paid more visits to the Last Chance Saloon than Clint Eastwood, and there's no reason to believe he'll take this ultimatum any more seriously than the others. More likely, he'll use his new mobility to stir up more trouble.
Mr. Arafat's decision last week to convict four Palestinians for the murder of an Israeli cabinet officer last October is instructive of his cynicism. His Palestininan Authority doesn't observe the usual due process niceties; Mr. Arafat is the final judge and jury. So if there was enough proof to convict the terrorists on demand last week, he had to know all along who the killers were. He had protected those terrorists until his own self-preservation demanded that he give them up. So much for the illusion that the suicide bombers are beyond his control.
President Bush is also taking a risk with his pledge to allow U.S. and British "wardens" to serve as monitors in the region. Mr. Arafat has always wanted foreign observers as a way to neutralize Israeli defense forces from striking back after terrorist attacks against Israelis. We also hope this isn't a setup for another Beirut Marine barracks disaster.
Reading the Bush Administration on the Mideast has become a little bit like Kremlinology. No outsider knows what's really going on; we wonder how many insiders really do. Our hope is that Mr. Bush's recent two-stepping is being done with the long-term strategic purpose of winning the war on terror by liberating Iraq.
