US goals for the Middle East have been unrealistic and misguided, writes Elaine Lafferty, in New York
As suicide bombers become a daily feature of news from the Middle East the question hanging in the air in Washington is: Can George Bush do anything?
Some say the Bush administration is paying the price for its benign neglect of the Middle East during its first year in office. But others contend there is a concrete reason why US mediator Gen Anthony Zinni's mission has failed on almost every count; the administration's goals are unrealistic and misguided.
"The Bush administration finally has to get real," Mr Henry Siegman, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations told The New York Times. "It has avoided dealing with the most fundamental aspect of the conflict. There is no formulation under God's sun that can get the parties to stop the violence. . . if this administration will not face up to the simple truth that stopping the violence and establishing the security of Israel is not something that serves any Palestinian goal whatsoever. The only way is to promise a clear political future, and not in the eschatological future but in the foreseeable future."
Any plan or proposal, whether it is the Tenet plan or the Mitchell plan, will not work without Mr Bush confronting the political reality, says Mr Siegman. Others agree that adhering to Israel's condition that a ceasefire must precede all political negotiations is doomed as a policy. Moreover, recent US diplomacy in the region has been focused on trying to build a consensus among Arab states for an invasion of Iraq. Vice-President Dick Cheney's tour of the region was narrowly focused on that goal.
All that has accomplished has been to draw the Arab states together in rejecting any action against Iraq.
Mr Bush is the first US president to speak openly of a Palestinian state. The administration also supported a UN resolution calling for it. But instead of serving to encourage the Palestinians to reject violence, the administration's rhetorical recognition, delivered without a plan for proceeding, has actually encouraged them to fight even harder, some experts say.
Speaking to the summit in the Middle East, Mr Farouk Kaddoumi, a senior Palestinian official, said there was imbalance between US means and ends. "The United States still hesitates to take a strict decision to stop the Israeli aggression, though it declared its vision for a Palestinian state and reaffirmed its decision in the United Nations resolution," he said.
"The United States is ignoring the Israeli actions, and claiming it is self-defence. This means that the Israeli-Arab conflict will be prolonged." Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia took the unusual step of publicly kissing Iraq's representative in front of the cameras at the Arab summit, sealing the idea that the Arabs are ready to begin welcoming Iraq back into their fold. The public embrace was a rebuff to the Bush administration and another sign of its declining influence in the region.
The question now of course is whether Mr. Bush will play what he has in the past called "the presidential card". By getting personally involved, and by offering up some real political options, he still has the potential to affect the parties. But the risks of failure are great. In a year when Mr Bush seems highly focused on politics, touring the country in support of republican congressional candidates, that kind of high wire act is unlikely.
What will determine Mr. Bush's action is the political price he will have to pay one way or the other. .