Rice hits diplomatic wall on Mideast tripBy ROBIN WRIGHT,The Washington Post[oas:casperstartribune.net/news/world:Middle1]
LONDON -- It was a tough week for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the Middle East. On four issues pivotal to the future of the world's most volatile region, U.S. diplomatic efforts made no visible progress or came up against unexpected resistance during her five-day tour, according to Arab and Israeli officials and analysts.On Iraq, Arab-Israeli peace, democracy promotion and fostering a so-called moderate bloc of Arab states to stand together against militancy, Rice pressed at each of six stops for new energy or more decisive action. Many of the Arab leaders she met share U.S. fears about the region's future, but there is a growing divide even with Washington's closest allies over what needs to be done, at what pace, in what order, and by whom, according to Arab officials interviewed at each stop.Several Arab officials and analysts privately dismissed Rice's tour as a cheerleading trip without substance. Others questioned the viability of the Bush administration's Middle East policy.
It is obvious to anyone that U.S. policy built after 9/11 including Iraq and the you're with us or against us attitude has now come to a dead end, said Paul Salem, the U.S.educated director of the new Beirut center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and son of Lebanon's former pro-American foreign minister.The United States and the Arab world are now engaged in a chicken and-egg argument over what happens next. Arab governments including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and five oil-rich Persian Gulf sheikhdoms all appealed to Rice to revive U.S. leadership to break deadlocks on several fronts because they have so far been unable to do it alone, Arab officials said. But Rice basically told governments at each stop that they must first take difficult steps to create conditions more conducive to greater U.S. involvement, U.S. officials said.
Rice did make some progress on a fifth issue, Iran, on her last stop in London, where six major powers agreed Friday to impose sanctions for Tehran's failure to suspend nuclear enrichment, a process that can be used to develop a nuclear weapon. But the road ahead remains rocky in winning agreement at the U.N. Security Council on what punitive measures to take, U.S. officials concede.Rice insisted Friday that her exploratory trip to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, the West Bank and two Iraqi cities was beneficial as the Bush administration moves toward intensive discussions about next steps after the month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel.
I'm very glad I came out at this time, she told reporters traveling with her.I've really enjoyed this trip to the Middle East, because I wanted to come out in the post-Lebanon period and get a real sense of what people were thinking. ... I have a much better sense of how the Lebanese events and this period are effecting people's calculations on what needs to be done.Rice acknowledged that the Arabs and Israel appealed for new momentum to break the escalating cycle of violence and political division in several strategic countries.This is an absolutely crucial time in the Middle East, and I heard in every single place that this isn't a time to stand still, Rice said Everyone understands that a lot is changing in the Middle East and that we need to have a positive agenda.
U.S. officials say their goal is to find ways to fill the political vacuum that has developed in the region -- before militants or Islamic radicals fill even more of it. Over the past year, Hamas won parliamentary elections and formed a government in the Palestinian territories, the Muslim Brotherhood became the largest legal opposition force in Egypt, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah emerged as a hero in the Muslim world for challenging Israel and surviving. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has taken some of the most defiant positions adopted by his country's leadership since the early days after the 1979 revolution.Rice's trip, U.S. officials said, was partly intended to signal that the Bush administration is still fully engaged and interested, despite the growing unpopularity of the Iraq war at home and election-eve questions about its broader Middle East policy. But Rice's talks with nine Arab governments and Israel contrasted starkly with her earlier visits for its lack of specific initiatives. A senior Egyptian official called U.S. policy increasingly unrealistic.
A wide range of senior Arab officials, who all spoke on background because of sensitive diplomacy with Washington, asserted the administration's brick-by-brick approach to transforming the Middle East is so minimalist that it is unlikely to make significant progress during President Bush's remaining time in office.They complained that Bush's personal role in the Middle East is nonexistent when compared with his early hands-on involvement in personally bringing Arabs and Israelis together or his public promises to ensure an end to more than six decades of war with a two-state solution.The greatest pressure was put on Rice at every stop to do something to jump-start the moribund Arab-Israeli peace process, which Arab leaders almost unanimously described as the key to solving other flashpoints. Yet Rice found herself negotiating some of the same issues she was engaged in last November, such as movement of people and trade in and out of the Gaza Strip. And withdrawal from parts of the West Bank, which had been promised by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, is even further away after the Lebanon war undermined his leverage and popularity.
After Rice met with Iraqi officials in Baghdad, some privately expressed concern about new tensions with Washington over the pace and sequence of handling the major challenges facing the government there, such as reconciliation and disarming militias. They complained that the Bush administration was not taking into account the potential for backlash among Iraqis if their leaders precipitously take controversial steps.On two other issues, senior Arab officials and analysts said promotion of democracy and the push to foster an anti-militant bloc are totally contradictory, because the moderates the United States is trying to rally against radical Islamic groups are some of the region's most autocratic governments.
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