Middle East: US losing 'Control'?
Two fascinating-- and hopeful-- items of Middle East news this morning. First, Syria, Israel, and Turkey have all confirmed that senior officials of Israel and Syria have been holding "proximity talks" on final-peace issues in Turkey since Monday.
Second, the Lebanese faction leaders and representatives who have been talking in Doha, Qatar since Sunday, have now announced their agreement on an package deal covering the three issues of: (1) getting the long-agreed presidential candidate Gen. Michel Suleiman finally inaugurated into office, (2) the make-up of the next cabinet, and (3) the rules for the next parliamentary election.
These items of diplomatic news are significant for these reasons:
- (1) In both cases, an entity that the Bush administration has been seeking to completely exclude from political participation has been included in a substantial way in this process. That is, Syria, and Lebanon's biggest political party, Hizbullah.
(2) In both cases, the mediation has been done by a non-American government that is (and remains) broadly friendly to the US, but with little regard for the preferences that the Bush administration has expressed very vociferously regarding the "exclusion" aim described above.
One earlier attempt by a pro-US power to do something broadly parallel to what the Qataris have achieved regarding Lebanon came in February 2007, when Saudi Arabia succeeded in brokering a "National Unity Agreement" between the Palestinian Fateh and Hamas movements.
On that occasion, Washington was furious, and stepped up its efforts to arm and train the pro-US Fateh people so they could retake the Palestinian polity by force. (They did succeed in breaking up the National Unity Government, but they left Palestinian society sorely wounded and badly divided.)
On this occasion, I'm not quite sure what cards the hardliners in Washington, led by Elliott Abrams, feel they might have left to play. Two facts are relevant to this. First, is the incredibly damaging effects that GWB's diva-like appearances last week in Israel have had on his administration's ability to exercise any persuasive sway at all in Arab capitals... And second is the fact that one of the parties going "off the Elliott Abrams-defined reservation" this time round is the Prime Minister of Israel.
I guess the Bush administration will just have to tag meekly along behind him.
Still worth watching for in the days ahead: whether these two diplomatic breakthroughs might also be accompanied by arrival at the long-promised breakthrough in the Israel-Hamas talks? (Pursuit of which by Israel in recent weeks has been another example of Israel going off the Elliott Abrams reservation.)
These are interesting times.
Still worth watching for in the days ahead: whether these two diplomatic breakthroughs might also be accompanied by arrival at the long-promised breakthrough in the Israel-Hamas talks?
I'd guess that a more immediate sign of the Bush administration's waning influence is the fact that Israeli-Syrian peace talks have come into the open and are being acknowledged by both sides. Evidently Washington no longer has power to veto them.
When you add in Hagel's criticism of McCain's rhetoric about Obama and diplomacy (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/20/chuck-hagel-takes-on-mcca_n_102775.html), it raises even more questions about the failure of the Bush administration's policies.
This new development in middle east polity is good for hope for peace and progress in the region.The US administration should change her approach on middle east peace plan this time around' and go by the new development.
The Bush administration should allow the middle easterners to go by this new approach for peace in the region to reign .
Upon re-reading the original post, I see that you did mention the Israel-Syria talks. Sorry for missing that reference.
Nice job of reminding us of the historical context on the Mediterranean shoreline in which Lebanese events fit. If one adds in the two recent Iranian diplomatic interventions to calm the situation in Iraq and the negotiations that the locals have started up in Somalia and Pakistan, your thesis becomes even stronger. There is a great deal of evidence that the Bush Administration is intent on exacerbating the confrontation with Islam in its waning months (http://shadowedforest.blogspot.com/2008/05/bushs-confrontation-with-islam.html). But an increasing number of moderate, nationalist, and even supposedly pro-Western political actors in the Moslem world appear to be adopting an independent view of how to manage their own region.
Speaking of Poor Ole George, Warren Buffett was in Europe last week checking out European companies he might want to buy. Buffett, a homespun codger who still runs his multi-billion dollar business out of an Omaha coffee shop, is said to be the second richest American after Bill Gates and is generally considered as the most astute investor America has produced since JP Morgan. His company Berkshire Hathaway invests in and owns other companies like Coca Cola, Gillette, Geico.
At a press conference in Frankfurt he was asked about the American election. This is from yesterday's New York Times:
He likened choices in American politics to an old saw about stock-picking:
"Buy into a business that's doing so well an idiot can run it, because sooner or later, one will. The U.S. is sort of like that."
Middle East: Saudis losing 'Control'?
Doha success: Among other things, a defeat for Saudi prestige
The announcement in Doha, Qatar of the Lebanese agreement came too late for the Wednesday Arab papers, but for the moment it seems worth noting that the Syrian semi-official paper Al-Watan anticipated the success of these talks in an editorial on Sunday May 18, taking it as the sign of the end of the era of real or imagined Saudi leadership in the region .
"These are interesting times".
Yes indeed. As William deB. Mills says above, the natives seem to be doing sensible things among themselves after the implosion of their current 'colonial master'. (I mean the USA, of course, not Israel, which might survive as an apartheid state for a few more years).
Good luck to them - I hope they keep the likes of Elliot Abrams out of their meeting rooms.
Why would all the Lebanese government parties suddenly be agreeing to power of veto for the Opposition after holding out for so long?
Why has the establishment of the Hariri tribunal been put off until next year?
Why did all the players in Lebanon suddenly rush off en masse to Qatar, a country which hosts a substantial US military base?
Why was their agreement IMMEDIATELY endorsed by the govts of USA, France on the one hand and Syria and Iran on the other?
Why would it then be simultaneously publicly announced that Syria and Israel are entering into negotiations with Turkey as the mediator?
Why are all these major players suddenly apparently agreeing overnight?
Isn't there something a bit odd about all this?
Perish at the thought, of course, but could Condi and the State Dept and backroom diplomacy driven by US have had anything to do with it?
As events unfold, no doubt it will become clearer to little bears like me.