War likely to change Middle East equation

When Anwar Sadat ordered Egypt's army to recapture the Suez Canal in 1973, he claimed to be launching a war for peace. Few believed him. But Sadat proved in that brief campaign and at Camp David six years later that he had been telling the truth.

President Bush faces an even trickier strategic carom shot in using the impending defeat of Saddam Hussein on the battlefield to halt the human slaughter that is the only form of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue today.

Like Sadat then, Bush is condemned to use the torch of war to escape forward from a deadly impasse.

The regional implications are not the core reason for taking up arms to end tyranny in Baghdad. Bush was clear and properly modest on that score in speaking in the conditional voice in his Wednesday night address: "Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace, and set in motion progress towards a truly democratic Palestinian state. ... A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.''

But to achieve those long-term aspirations, the Bush administration must begin to broaden its diplomatic focus now and contribute more actively to the political changes it rightly demands in a reformed Palestinian Authority.

That means speaking on these issues in a distinctly American voice that is not co-opted or manipulated by those in Israel who oppose giving up the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinian statehood the president endorses.

American role

Being identified in the Arab mind with Israel's survival is an appropriate and necessary Am-erican role; being identified solely with Ariel Sharon and his policies, as Bush has gradually become, is a self-defeating political luxury for the president and his overarching diplomacy in a time of war.

Sharon has handled the American account masterfully, circumventing the State Depar-tment to forge a strong personal link with Bush. This adroitness helped Sharon win re-election as prime minister.

Bush had little room to manoeuvre in recent months as he prepared for Iraq, as Sharon fought for re-election and, perhaps most importantly, as the Palestinians and their Arab patrons took no serious steps to respond to the president's calls for overhauling the Palestinian Authority run by Yasser Arafat.

Bush has responded to the Palestinian stalling by his own stalling on the publication of an international "road map'' to jump-start the moribund peace process.

Understandably so: The central strategic reality to emerge since the failure of Camp David II in the summer of 2000 is that the current Palestinian leadership is incapable and unwilling to pursue or accept a just peace with Israel were one to be offered again.

Only a new leadership that does not rob its people blind and use force to silence its responsible opponents could risk peace. On this, Bush is right.

Rapid success in the war in Iraq could change that. The "Arab street'' understands power as only those whose daily survival is threatened by the ruler's caprice can. But the Bush team must be positioned to turn war gains into a clear, achievable and effective diplomatic campaign, as Sadat did in 1973 and as George H.W. Bush did in 1991.

Bush's indirect endorsement Wednesday night of a political charter of liberties for Arab nations being pushed by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah was a first step in that direction.

Because of Iraq's particular characteristics and Bush's strong personal commitment to its liberation, democracy may arrive there in the thunderclap of war. Elsewhere in the Arab world, reform may be more of a step-by-step process that must be reinforced by a clear and immediate American commitment to a mutually equitable Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Peace after reforms

That peace is most likely to come after Palestinian reform and after a significant period of separation of Israelis and Palestinians through agreement or unilateral Israeli withdrawal behind a security zone or "fence.'' Sharon would prefer to maintain colonies and the status quo.

It will be Bush's task to show him that this bloody status quo is not acceptable and is no more sustainable than was the Sinai occupation that Sadat began to undo on October 6, 1973.

© 2003, Washington Post Writers Group