Bush let Blair and the world down

It makes you wonder why United Kingdom Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has reduced his full fledged commitment to "revive final status negotiations by this year's end", to merely a conference to "speed up reforms in the Palestinian Authority" next month.

Addressing the Labour Party annual conference last October, Blair said "by this year's end, we must have revived final status negotiations and they must have explicitly as their aims an Israel state free from terror, recognised by the Arab world, and a viable Palestinian state based on the boundaries of 1967."

Sensing the explosive dangers emanating from the deadlock in the Middle East peace process, with Iraq war looming above our heads, he told the conference delegates: "Yes, what is happening in the Middle East now is ugly and wrong - the Palestinians living in increasingly abject conditions, humiliated and hopeless (and) the Israeli civilians brutally murdered. I agree United Nations resolutions should apply to all parties (in the region)."

I questioned in this section (October 10) Blair's ability to convince United States President George Walker Bush and guarantee his support for such an initiative.

What Blair has done, I said then, "is put the perennial question of how much influence he has in Washington to a further test. Blair may compete with Israel's premier Ariel Sharon over the President's ear, but can he win?"

Now we know.

To be fair to Tony Blair, he has always realised the vital links between Iraq and Palestine, since the early days of the US administration campaign against Saddam Hussain's Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD).

He knows fully well that in order to succeed in this campaign, the world needs to move quickly on the Palestine issue and revive the dormant peace process.

Blair told a re-called House of Commons Iraq's emergency debate on September 24, that "we need a new conference on the Middle East peace (with) a massive mobilisation of energy to get the peace process moving again."

All this rosy expectations turned out to be based on sand. This is only one blow, among many, from the administration towards its friends and allies in just almost one week.

The second blow came when the U.S. declared, just 48 hours before a meeting of the "Quartet" was due to take place in New York last week, that its plan known for a "road map for peace in the Middle East" was not ready yet.

Representatives of the "Quartet" - the U.S., the European Union, Russia and the UN, who held an informal meeting with President Bush last Friday, had been told earlier of the administration's proposal to postpone the declaration of the "road map" until after Israel's general election on January 28.

International mediators of the Quartet were to hold their long-awaited and carefully-planned meeting in Washington, at the invitation of Secretary of State Colin Powell, to formally announce the "road map for peace".

This was a the biggest gift the right-wing coalition government in Israel could ever dream of. It is quite clear now whose side the U.S. administration is taking in the Israeli election.

Not only is the U.S. on the side of this Israeli evil, but it makes the Bush administration look as if it has become the highest barrier to progress on the Middle East peace process. The administration is sending humiliating messages not only to the Arabs, but also to the Europeans, the Russians and as well as the UN.

Secretary Powell has tried hard to explain this setback to peace efforts. "We think it would be wiser in this instance for us to continue work on the road map and wait until after the Israeli election is over," he said.

With his back against the wall in view of the increasingly strengthened right-wing pro-Israel contingent within the administration, the bruised Powell said: "It's just a matter of weeks until that is resolved and then we will engage with all the parties."

But, speaking for the EU, Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said the revelation of the "road map" plan now would put Israeli volatile voters in a better position to decide.

"It is very important, in the European Union's opinion, that the voters of Israel know what the world thinks about the situation," he said. "Being an enlightened voter means that you also have the information on which you build your vote."

Moeller is absolutely right. The Quartet represents the world and many believe if this body fails to bring the Middle East closer to peace, no one else can.

Powell has worked very hard over the past weeks and months with his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and European External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten, to bring the Quartet's road map to its final conclusion.

At their summit in Copenhagen on December 11, EU leaders voiced the hope that the "road map for peace in the Middle East", would be adopted at last Friday's meeting in Washington.

The UN coordinator for peace in the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen told a group of Arab journalists early in the month in London of his high expectations of the Washington meeting.

But one more time, Bush let everyone down. The third blow happened just few days ago when the U.S. representative at the Security Council vetoed a Syrian drafted resolution condemning Israel for the killing of civilian workers for UNRWA in the Occupied Territories.

A British worker, Iain Hook and two other Palestinians were shot by Israeli soldiers while on duty last month. The killings drew strong criticism against Israel from Kofi Annan and the British government.

The U.S. used its power of veto to torpedo what many consider to have been a humanitarian draft resolution. All other security council permanent members - Britain, France, China and Russia voted in favour.


Mustapha Karkouti is the former president, Foreign Press Association in London.