Posted on 04/04/2002 9:22:07 AM PST by SBeck
Bush Says U.S. Is to Assume Stronger Role in Ending Violence
By DAVID E. SANGER
[W] ASHINGTON, April 4 ? Shifting his Middle East policy after widespread criticism, President Bush announced today that he was sending Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to the region. The president also called on Israel to stop its military advances on Palestinian-controlled areas and to withdraw from the cities it has occupied in the last week.
"As Israel steps back, responsible Palestinian leaders and Israel's Arab neighbors must step forward and show the world that they are truly on the side of peace," Mr. Bush said. "The choice and the burden will be theirs."
The president added, "The world expects an immediate cease-fire. I expect better leadership. I expect results."
The president also asked Palestinians to deliver a clear message to terrorists.
"Blowing yourself up does not help the Palestinian cause," he said. "To the contrary suicide bombing missions could well blow up the best and only hope for a Palestinian state."
With Mr. Powell at his side, President Bush told reporters in the Rose Garden that the United States would assume a stronger role in ending the violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
A central element of that more vigorous American involvement will be a mission by Mr. Powell to the Mideast.
President Bush said Mr. Powell would try to get the Israelis and the Palestinians to adopt an immediate cease-fire in accordance with the United Nations Resolution 1402. The president also said he was calling for the adoption of the Mitchell and Tenet plans.
"We have no illusions about the difficulty of the issues that lie ahead," President Bush said. "Yet our nation's resolve is strong."
Just last week, the Bush Administration said it would not send Powell to the region. But
a shift in American policy was signaled on Wednesday, when the administration said that the search for a political solution need not wait for an end to the bloodshed.
Mr. Powell, appearing Wednesday night on the CBS television program "60 Minutes II," said for the first time that Israel's military operations in the West Bank, which expanded significantly earlier in the day, should not be open-ended. "There should be a time dimension to how long" Prime Minister Ariel Sharon continues the campaign against the Palestinian Authority, he said.
Earlier in the day, speaking to reporters at the State Department, Secretary Powell said "my mind is open" to meeting next week with those involved the conflict, during his visit to Germany and Spain.
Until then the White House had always deflected questions about sending Secretary Powell or another high-level official to work face to face on the problem, rather than over the telephone. That was so even given the apparent failure of the third visit to the region by a special envoy, Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, and mounting frustration with the administration's approach among Arab and European allies.
"We are examining all possibilities," Secretary Powell said. "I would not rule out any meetings with anybody where it would serve a useful purpose." As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has descended in recent days into a bloody tangle of suicide bombings and Israeli military strikes, the administration has steadfastly maintained the position that the violence had to diminish first before the first steps toward political negotiations.
But Secretary Powell declared Wednesday night that "Neither side is going to be able to decisively defeat the other" and added, "It's going to take a negotiation, a political process, to get out of this violence."
The domestic and international pressure on President Bush has been intense, but deeply contradictory.
Europeans and Arab states are pressing him to give Yasir Arafat incentives to call a halt in the Palestinian suicide bombings, while many conservatives here are arguing just the opposite. They say President Bush should abandon any effort to intercede and should help Mr. Sharon crush Mr. Arafat and terrorist groups allied with him, which they compare to Al Qaeda.
The anti-American protests in several Arab capitals have also caused concern within the administration that the conflict could spread instability across the region and undercut the possibility of an American military campaign against Iraq.
But others in the administration, including some of the president's political advisers, have been keeping a wary eye on the rising price of crude oil, a place where Middle East politics and midterm-election politics meet.
Perhaps the most striking sign of new thinking in the White House came when Secretary Powell said Wednesday evening: "The political component of this process has to be brought forward much more quickly than we might have thought otherwise. The Palestinian people have to see that there is a political process, and not just a cease-fire and a security process."
That political process, he said, had to include negotiations, "which will lead quickly to a Palestinian state" or "an interim state."
His comments went significantly beyond statements earlier Wednesday by the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, who told reporters that President Bush "remains committed to a political vision" of creating a separate Palestinian state and secure Israeli borders "as he works for a cease-fire."
While Wednesday's statements fell short of defining a new policy for an administration whose approach has been criticized as too hands-off and too muddled, taken together they seemed to show that the White House was bending to calls for a new approach.
Mr. Bush held several meetings on the Mideast on Wednesday, and one senior Administration official said "we're preparing the ground" for new proposals.
"There is a general agreement that we can't stand where we are for much longer," the official said. "It's simply not working." But the official cautioned there "are still arguments" within the administration "about where to go next."
Some conservatives, however, clearly expressed the direction they believe Mideast policy should go.
Representative Tom DeLay, perhaps the most powerful Republican in the House and one of its most conservative voices, urged Mr. Bush in a speech Wednesday night to side far more solidly with Israel and to avoid pulling Israel back to the negotiating table, where it will "be pressured to grand concessions to terrorists."
"The time has come to drop the empty pretense that we can serve the region as a mere broker," Mr. DeLay said. "Israel is resisting a campaign of death."
Led by William Kristol, who served in the administration of Mr. Bush's father, other conservatives wrote a joint letter to Mr. Bush urging him to expand the war on terrorism to include Mr. Arafat (whom the White House has never defined as a terrorist).
"One spoke of the terrorist network consists of Yasir Arafat and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority," the letter says. "It is critical that negotiations not be the product of terrorism, or conducted under the threat of terrorist attack."
The letter also urged Mr. Bush to "accelerate plans for removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." Middle East experts, including some in the State Department, say a confrontation with Iraq now would further inflame anti-American protests and force American allies to split from Washington.
Secretary Powell left open the possibility that the United States would move alone against Mr. Hussein. "We have enormous capabilities available to us," he said. But he acknowledged that the Mideast situation greatly complicated the issue. He suggested that Iraq, Iran and Syria may be "using the Middle East conflict as an excuse for those terrorist organizations" operating in the Middle East.
While the conservatives have argued for a more muscular, pro-Israel stance, Arab-Americans met Secretary Powell on Wednesday to argue that American policy should be more even-handed.
Republicans are clearly divided. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania took issue with those in his party who said there should be no negotiations with Mr. Arafat.
"The United States should stand by Israel, and the United States is standing behind Israel foursquare," he said in an interview. "The question is, Where do you go from here on solving the problems of the Mideast?" Of Mr. Arafat he said: "If there were someone who could step forward and do a better job of representing the Palestinian Authority, that would be fine. But no one is in the wings."
Two members of Congress, Lois Capps, a California Democrat, and James A. Leach, an Iowa Republican, asked Mr. Bush to send three former presidents, Jimmy Carter, George Bush and Bill Clinton, on "a mission to the region with the goals of bringing about a cease-fire and, more importantly, starting a process toward a diplomatic solution."
White House officials say all the conflicting advice was somewhat liberating for the president by making it easier for him to choose his own course.
"This is a highly passionate issue in which there are deep emotions running on both sides, and there are people who are probably not satisfied on both sides," said Dan Bartlett, one of the president's communications specialists. "Most times when that's the case, it appears you might be doing something right."
But that has hardly been the view of America's Arab allies. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, told a conference at the University of Oklahoma on Wednesday that he was frustrated that the Israelis had spurned the Arab peace offer, a plan the administration gave its support. "We're offering the Israelis full, total peace and security in return for ending the military occupation," he said.
"You still have the Arab leadership ready to stick its neck out and say, yes, let's have peace," he added. But he warned of dire consequences if the situation remains unchanged. "I cannot guarantee this down the road, when everybody becomes a suicidal bomber."
Prince Bandar said that the United States coalition against terror is being undercut by Israeli aggression. "Israel's actions are definitely changing and affecting the equation of the international war on terrorism," he said.
Cool! A trade? :-D
The EU favors Arafat.
This is all meant to please the Arab world. Remember, the US pledges Arafat's safety. We have to continue to make soothing noises so that the Saudi masses don't boil over.
If an oil embargo develops, the economy suffers and Bush is toast.
The current unrest in the ME is campaign number two in bin Laden's playbook, by the way.
Do you really think they want to be policemen in the Palestinian territories for time and eternity.
They want a Palestianian state with responsible leadership.
He's allowed them to go in and route out the immediate danger.
Now he's giving them an out, and bringing them back to the peace table.
But at the same time, seems to me he's calling for Arafat to be replaced.
And he's also telling the other Arab nations to butt out.
Plus he admonished the Arab world because they refused to call suicide bombers terrorist. Bush just called them murderers.
Powell is wrong AGAIN. Israel could definately decisively defeat the Palastinian terrorists. Powell seems to be sympathizing with the Palastinians, and all he'll do is go in and twist Israel's arm to give away the store, give more land, back off, don't retaliate, etc. He seems so out of step with this administration. I remember when he couldn't "decide" if he was a Demoncrat or a Republican. I think the Loooooooong time it took him to make up his mind was very telling. He's a Demoncrat who wanted to be part of the winning team, but he can't hide his Democrat sympathies.
Nah, the american people know who to tie this to and it isn't GWB.
Bush's inaction/shifting policy that the media clowns and the Democrats have been gloating over was just cover for Sharon to conduct his operations against the Palestinian terrorists.
Bush lost some political capital during this last week...however, he bought some time for Israel to do damage to the Palestinian terror networks.
President Bush will now do, IMO, whatever it takes to calm this down and clear a direct path to Saddam Hussein.
The president is (rightfully) determined to keep the world's focus on Saddam because a fundamental and positive change in the politics of the Middle East...for Isreal's security as well as our own...can only be built with Saddam's replacement.
I swear, it seems sometimes that the world hates nothing more than a Jew with a gun.
And what if they don't (which I sincerely believe they will not)? What then? I hope we can drop the charade of keeping the PA as a "partner of peace."
Who writes this crap?
w should hire Pat Buchanan to write his speeches.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.