[Mb-civic] What's Achievable in the Mideast - Jim Hoagland - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

What's Achievable in the Mideast

By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, March 5, 2006; B07

Backlash against democratic change is on the march in the Middle East 
one year after freedom seemed to be surging ahead there. This cyclical 
ebb and flow of forces should be the cause of adjustment in the West, 
not of despair or of abandoning the push for democratic reform in the 
region.

The illusion that Lebanon's weak democratic forces would easily shake 
off Syria's stranglehold on their country has been dispelled. So have 
hopes that elections in Iran, Iraq, Egypt and the Palestinian 
territories would automatically enhance or entrench political reform or 
moderation. But pronouncing democracy in the Middle East a failure after 
this year of reactive turmoil overshoots the runway again -- in the 
opposite direction.

The Bush administration should instead adjust the pace of its strong 
push for democracy in Muslim lands to reflect the changes it has helped 
produce. This applies most urgently to the long war between Israelis and 
Palestinians.

President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have outlined a 
generational commitment to replacing a stability of tyranny long 
underwritten by U.S. policy with the unpredictability of free choice. 
Helping establish a democratic Palestinian state that would live in 
peace with Israel has been both centerpiece and condition for Bush's 
long-term vision.

But the American president must also cope with the inconveniences of 
democracy. Bush has not a generation but less than three years left in 
office. It is time for him and Rice to focus on their political 
mortality; that is, to focus ruthlessly on tangible actions that would 
clear the way for their successors to achieve the grand design of 
expanding freedom.

The electoral victory of the radicals of Hamas -- who refuse to 
recognize peace pacts reached with Israel or to negotiate any new 
accords with the Jewish state -- underlines both the need and the 
possibility of this shifting of gears by Washington. Hamas spokesmen say 
they will remain peaceful as long as Israel unilaterally concedes what 
Hamas wants.

Instead of getting bogged down in tactical disputes over whether to have 
diplomatic contacts with Hamas as a prelude to resuming peace 
negotiations, the Bush team and its allies should commit themselves to 
creating the conditions for the controlled separation of Israelis and 
Palestinians through effective and equitable security barriers by Jan. 
1, 2009.

Separation has replaced negotiation as the only viable approach to 
coexistence -- at least for the time left to Bush -- for both Israelis 
and Palestinians.

The immediate American role should be to provide the push and the 
assurances needed to get Israel to duplicate Ariel Sharon's unilateral 
disengagement from the Gaza Strip and yield more than 90 percent of the 
West Bank, while compensating the Palestinians with land swaps for the 
few housing areas close to Jerusalem not evacuated.

The arrangement of de facto frontiers for a two-state solution would 
resemble what are known in Israel as the Clinton parameters, which 
emerged from Israeli-Palestinian talks at Camp David under President 
Bill Clinton in 2000 and then in Taba, Egypt, in January 2001.

It is not as good a solution as a formal peace treaty would be. But as 
former secretary of state George Shultz, who thinks deeply about the 
Mideast, told me recently, the failure of the Oslo accords and the Camp 
David talks has to be acknowledged and corrected:

"The only thing the Palestinians have at this point to offer the 
Israelis is a willingness to participate in constructing a secure 
environment. But if the Palestinians won't commit to that and the 
Israelis can produce that outcome themselves through security barriers 
and other means," negotiations become pointless. "There are times when 
it is best not to try to get people to agree on a finality."

But Bush cannot afford to have stagnation on the Israeli-Palestinian 
front as he tries to win wider Arab acceptance of his reform agenda. One 
way to stress movement is to make it clear that the United States 
supports a drawing of the line of separation as close as possible to the 
1967 borders and will insist on a humane operation of the line of 
security strips and barriers -- known as "the fence" to the Israelis and 
as "the wall" to their critics.

Such moves will help reduce the baggage that Bush's successors must 
carry when it comes their time to promote democracy and seek other 
timely change in the Middle East. Lightening their load is a worthy goal 
even for a personally ambitious president.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/03/AR2006030301754.html
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