By Heather Yamour, KUNA
Washington : With his final year in office, US President George W. Bush’s earlier promise to bring together Israel and the Palestinians to form a two-state solution by 2008 is most likely to be shelved for history, as attentions shift to the next presidential elections and the future US administration, experts say.
With just eleven months in office, experts say President Bush, the first American president to call for a two-state solution, should set his sight on an easy hand off of the process to the next presidential administration, a greater achievement than in past presidencies.
“The minimum that he can achieve in the course of his last year is that he could bequeath to his success a working process,” said Harvey Sicherman, director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and former aid to three US secretaries of state, comparing what Clinton passed on to him, and what was passed on by Regan to Bush Senior.
He added even this accomplishment “would take a good deal of effort.” And with escalating violence in Gaza and the Israeli government “too weak to fall, but too strong to do anything”, the prospects of reaching the maximum achievement — a signed peace treaty between Israel and Palestine — is a mirage for President Bush.
The mirage, as Sicherman defined was “a sense that something can be achieved when in fact, the grasp is far too short of what the reach has been proclaimed to be.” At a panel discussion titled “End-of-Term Presidents and the Middle East” at the Washington Institute of Near East Affairs, Martin Indyk, former assistant secretary of state for Near East policy and former ambassador to Israel under the Clinton administration, said President Bush “went out there raised expectations sky-high but as we see nothing has happened except bad things,” referring to the situation in Gaza, where thousands have poured across the Egyptian border over the past week after Israeli forces severed electricity and supplies to the area.
Bush’s objective to try to reach a peace agreement “is a bridge much too far,” said Indyk, addig that by handing off the process to the next president, there may still be a successful solution in the next four years.
The Bush administration’s proposed a roadmap for peace in 2002, which set the framework for Israel-Palestinian peace and the establishment of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel by late-2008.
Though both Israel and the Palestinians pledged support for Bush’s roadmap, neither side fully achieved the commitments.
In 2007, the administration tried to jumpstart the framework at the Annapolis conference, inviting 22 Arab countries and the rest of the international community to participate in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. This effort to pressure Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas towards an accord resulted in only a passive agreement to start talks on the matter.
Now, with last minute urgency by the Bush administration to reach an agreement between Israel and Palestine, before leaving office in January 2009, is a matter not felt by the leaders in Tel Aviv and Ramallah.
Though the parties have a stake in the peace process, that does not necessarily mean they have a stake in an agreement, as Sicherman explained, “The president is leaving office but they don’t know when they’re leaving office,” said Sicherman, “they have a bit more of time frame than he has.” The US needs to put more effort towards rebuilding roadmap commitments; this includes getting the Israelis to dismantle illegal settlement outposts and getting Palestinians to end violence, suggests Indyk.
“Heavy active engagement will need to happen before this complicated structure gets moving,” said Indyk.
One important step for the US is to rebuild confidence, especially among Palestinians, Indyk suggested the US focus on building the Palestinian infrastructure, including a Palestinian security service, which he called “necessary for a territorial agreement.” Also the US needs to boost the Palestinian economy by encouraging foreign investment, and engage in Arab states to “pony up” by taking more involvement position on the peace issue.
“Arabs need to pony up. We are going to have to get them into it”, said Indyk.
He called for proposed talks between Israel and Syria, while protecting US interests in Lebanon.
Whoever wins in the next Presidential election, Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton or John McCain will have to carry the Israeli-Palestiain issue from where President Bush left it off.
“If there is a viable peace process, whether McCain, Clinton or Obama takes office, they will pick up where President Bush left off. The question will be how to deal with crisis management. What has to be achieved? We need to start on the ground first. The roadmap needs to be implemented,” he said.
The next step could be a very difficult for the US to decide, Indyk concluded.