U.S. faces new pressures on Mideast diplomatic policy

By Michael Matza
Knight Ridder Newspapers

JERUSALEM - As Israel frets about its future without Ariel Sharon in the national driver's seat, there is also pressure building on the United States to redefine its diplomatic objectives for managing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. One approach calls for hands-on, high-level involvement by the United States. But with Palestinian elections this month and Israeli elections in March, the United States also will have to tread lightly to avoid the appearance of interference. And in many ways the climate for a negotiated settlement is just not ripe, Israeli, Palestinian and American analysts say. For the Bush administration, Sharon's debilitating stroke is much more than one man's health crisis. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's decision to cancel a scheduled trip to Indonesia and Australia so she can monitor the latest medical bulletins and be available for a funeral should Sharon not survive only underscores the depth of the administration's concern. Sharon's sudden illness forces into the open the delicate nature of a U.S. policy that granted him almost unlimited leeway as he pursued unilateral moves to defuse the conflict. As the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, showed no signs of slowing, Sharon isolated his longtime nemesis, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, in his West Bank compound in Ramallah. Arafat stayed there until shortly before his death in a Paris hospital in November 2004. To block suicide bombers from entering Israel from the West Bank, Sharon began construction of the controversial concrete and barbed wire separation barrier. And late last summer, he forced more than 8,000 Jewish settlers to abandon the Gaza Strip, which had been occupied by Israeli forces since 1967. It's unlikely that any successor would have such freedom to maneuver. For now, Israel is being governed by acting prime minister Ehud Olmert, a veteran politician who joined Sharon in bolting the Likud Party to form the center-right Kadima Party late last year. While Olmert, a former Jerusalem mayor and finance minister, has formidable domestic credentials, he lacks experience as a head of state. "Certainly Olmert has good personal contacts with some Americans. But that's not the same as managing Israel-American relations as prime minister. He's never been a minister of defense, foreign minister or ambassador to U.S., three portfolios which have the closest relations with the United States. ... (He's) a tabula rasa when it comes to relations with the United States," said Israeli political analyst Yossi Alpher, a former senior official in Israeli intelligence. By most accounts the road ahead for U.S. policymakers is not an easy one. They will want to reassure Israel and support it during this difficult transition. Fundamentally, they will want to be helpful to Olmert as he seeks to carry on Sharon's legacy. "But they don't know Olmert well and presumably will be a little more cautious," Alpher said. Palestinian political analyst Mahdi Abdul Hadi said a visible U.S. presence in the region was essential and that the United States should not tie itself too closely to any individual leader but should foster a strong commitment to a process that could lead back to bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. "Arafat is gone. (His successor Mahmoud Abbas) is weak. Sharon is out of the picture. The era of historical icons as leaders is over. My advice (to the Americans) is ... be visible, come in, resume contact. Don't look for a personality ... look for validating the process," he said. A viable peace process requires leaders willing and able to make compromises for peace and to mobilize their domestic constituencies behind the effort. Given what looks to be "a prolonged period of sorting out on both sides," perhaps the best the United States can hope for is an extended period of damage control, said Richard Haass, a former high-ranking State Department official, now president of the Council on Foreign Relations. "The United States would almost have to enter a phase not of shuttle diplomacy, but more of rhetorical diplomacy where it tries to build a context that makes it more likely that there can be, down the road, a resumption of productive diplomacy," Haass said in an interview posted on the council's Web site after Sharon fell ill. "I don't think the administration is going to have the option of trying to force parties to the table."