US: The US is struggling to find a strategy beyond appeals for peace,atrick Smyth writes from Washington.
As US diplomacy becomes, by the day, more mired in the Middle East crisis the administration has struggled to come up with a coherent strategy beyond general exhortations to both sides to opt for peace.
The desperate short-termism of a reluctant participant looking for a way out, is how one diplomat described US policy to date.
But following the meeting between President Bush and the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, on Tuesday, a clearer and more focused line has begun to emerge in which the convening of a regional peace conference, preferably this summer, and the new dimension of fundamental reform or reconstruction of the Palestinian Authority are central features.
Senior European diplomatic sources say that they have been pressing the US to see the "reconstruction" of a largely devastated Palestinian apparatus as an opportunity that must be seized.
Not only must buildings be rebuilt, they say, but the political institutions, in a way that promotes transparency and efficiency and the possibility of the emergence of new voices.
The idea appears to appeal to the US and the Israelis in part because it responds to longstanding demands of theirs that the Palestinian security forces be streamlined into a single force under strong central control - hence the return of the CIA leader, Mr George Tenet, to the region to advise. But also because they believe it may also provide them with an alternative interlocutor to the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat.
Reform of the Palestinian Authority is also said to appeal to Arab allies - they have not been enamoured of Mr Arafat's role but believe it is impossible to bypass him. "Why not come up with a Palestinian constitution that makes Arafat president and creates the position of prime minister? Arafat reigns but he doesn't rule," one Arab official told the Washington Post. "At the beginning, no one in the administration bought this, but now they're discussing it." And Mr Bush's clear enthusiasm for the idea of reforming the Authority at his press conference suggests it has strong support.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday before an Oval office meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah, Mr Bush said his goal for the Palestinian Authority is that it "put structures in place . . . that respect the rule of law, has its own constitution, fights corruption, is able to spend money properly when it gets it from foreign sources".
Sources close to the EU's diplomatic leader, Mr Javier Solana, say that talk of replacing Mr Arafat is dangerous and misguided. Mr Solana himself spoke yesterday in Madrid of the latter having considerably more democratic legitimacy than many unelected Arab leaders. But he is also understood to have spoken in private of the Palestinian Authority as it stands as an inefficient, confused combination of NGO, state, and private company.
The EU sources say that new structures would enable a new leadership to emerge and would provide the sort of checks and balances currently lacking.
But the EU would be strongly opposed to the contention by Mr Sharon at the Tuesday press conference that the political dimension to the peace process must be put on hold until the Palestinian Authority is reformed. And suggestions by Israeli sources in the paper Ha'aretz that Mr Bush had agreed that Mr Arafat's demotion to figurehead leader would have to precede Palestinian-Israeli talks were vehemently denied by the Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell.
"We didn't get into any detailed discussions of what might be a precondition for something else," he told reporters. While noting that governmental reform is "essential" he said that it was one part of a broader package of policies, including political talks.