U.S. Must Put Peace on Fast Track, Powell Tells Bush

WASHINGTON — President Bush huddled with his top security advisors at Camp David on Saturday to thrash out what to do about the Mideast maelstrom amid a growing perception that the crisis now boils down to the very existence of Israel alongside a Palestinian state--and finding one last formula to make that work.

The summit in the tranquillity of the Maryland woods--attended by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, CIA Director George J. Tenet and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice--grappled with the one stark new reality to emerge from Powell’s recent 10-day trip to the region: The administration needs to develop a strategy to get quickly to the endgame rather than focus on more interim agreements or phases on the road to eventual peace.

“After Powell’s trip, we certainly have a clearer appreciation of where all the parties stand, what is possible at the moment and what are the most promising paths to go down,” said National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormick.

Added a State Department official involved in the diplomacy who asked to remain anonymous: “We’re at nosebleed levels about where this goes next. The administration has to make a lot of tough choices.”

For the weekend retreat, according to U.S. officials, Powell brought some powerful conclusions from his trip for discussion. Most were sure to spark debate. Some might be difficult for the White House to accept, reflecting a significant gap between the White House and State Department on certain aspects of the crisis. But all have to be faced, according to both U.S. officials and Mideast experts.

First, Powell is telling the administration that Israelis and Palestinians are so estranged that, for now, the chasm separating them cannot be bridged through gradual confidence-building measures on security. The security and political phases of a peace process, outlined sequentially by two previous U.S.-orchestrated plans, should be merged. Israeli concerns about peace and stability need to parallel action on a political track that addresses the aspirations of the Palestinians--and prevents them from resorting to violence.

“It’s now clear that we’re beyond a phased process of peacemaking. Given the pain and rage of the past few weeks, there’s no way to stop this cycle [of violence] incrementally,” said Shibley Telhami, holder of the Anwar Sadat chair in peace and development at the University of Maryland and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “There has to be something dramatic that will change the reality on the ground.”

Palestinian Statehood Focus of Discussions

State Department officials increasingly talk of moving to the establishment of a Palestinian state, with less focus on rebuilding the shattered Palestinian Authority as a preliminary step.

“Improvement in the security situation must be linked to the second point--determined pursuit of a political solution. There can be no peace without security, but there can also be no security without peace,” Powell said before leaving Jerusalem for home Wednesday.

Second, Powell has taken the firm position that Israeli troops and tanks must withdraw fully from the occupied territories--and also end the practice of search-and-arrest return raids after they have departed.

This demand might prove contentious, for the president appeared to backtrack last week, under congressional and domestic political pressure, from several earlier calls on Israel to withdraw immediately. On Thursday, he said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had “met the timetable” he outlined for pulling out. And in his Saturday radio address, Bush said only that Israel “must continue” removing its troops.

“Powell has to convince Bush that the United States can’t move on any front until the Israelis are really and truly out. It’s the top priority,” the State Department official said. “This may not be easy because the president’s getting hammered on the Hill.”

Third, Powell will explain that Yasser Arafat has to be accepted as the Palestinian leader--and Sharon will have to face dealing with him, directly or indirectly, whether he wants to.

Israelis increasingly speak of expelling Arafat, a fate he narrowly avoided once already at the onset of the current offensive when Powell telephoned Sharon and said Washington would view that as a tactical mistake, according to Israeli officials.

Bush has had only tough admonitions for Arafat and appears to feel disdain for him. But in talks with four Arab leaders and the European Union before heading to Israel, Powell was repeatedly told that Arafat was elected by the Palestinians and accepted by most of the world--and that neither Israel nor the United States could alter that.

Arabs Unite Behind an Embattled Arafat

The Arabs, who just last month offered Israel full recognition in exchange for its withdrawal from all occupied land, bluntly made clear that they will not participate in any peace effort without Arafat. More important to the White House, they also made clear that it would be difficult for them to help further in the war on terrorism if the U.S. backed a move by Sharon to either expel or marginalize the Palestinian leader.

Fourth, Powell is advocating that the United States will have to play an ongoing and more high-profile role--all the way up to the White House--to prevent both an escalation of the raging violence and a wider regional conflict.

The clashes are currently in a comparative lull, as Israel begins withdrawing from some areas and the Palestinians, their extremist cells disrupted or in hiding, pick through the physical and political debris left behind. And Powell’s one clear success was defusing tensions along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. Hezbollah has pulled back, and the daily attacks there, which coincided with the Israeli incursion, have ceased.

But absent some progress, few believe that the calm on either front will last. In his Saturday radio address, Bush said progress on peace will require “hard choices and real leadership” by Palestinians, Israelis and Arabs.

And once hostilities heat up again, State Department officials say, the choice will be stark: Either continue diplomacy to keep a U.S. finger in the dike or do what’s necessary to finish the endgame.

“The whole tragedy is that, for the first time in 50 years, there is a solution on the table. Sharon’s party is no longer pushing the idea of Greater Israel. Arabs at the Arab League summit codified the end of the conflict, as Israel has demanded all these days. And the vast majority of Palestinians and Israelis accept the idea of negotiations and a two-state solution. But neither leader will take a step forward without being forced to do so,” said Judith Kipper, director of the Mideast program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Now that the Bush administration is deeply reengaged, U.S. officials acknowledge that it will be difficult to back out or diminish that role. Indeed, the United States may well find itself blamed for future Israeli or Palestinian deaths because of its failure to break the deadlock.

“The Bush administration will now have to be very hands-on, using its full clout and persuasive powers, paying for this or that, and taking the various players by the scruffs of their necks to where they need to go for their own interests,” Kipper said.

Bush is certain to hear strong appeals for more decisive U.S. action when he meets with two key Arab leaders this week. Morocco’s King Mohammed VI’s first question to Powell when they met two weeks ago was why he hadn’t gone straight to Jerusalem. And Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, who at U.S. urging crafted the new Arab League initiative on a full peace with Israel, feels that his kingdom--not to mention his political neck--is on the line.

“This is a critical juncture for the administration,” Telhami said. “Whatever strategy is chosen, it has no chance of success unless the president is fully invested behind it and makes the case to the American public to be fully invested behind it.”