> > This is a fine explanation of why the Camp David payments started. But
> > it doesn't explain the more pertinent issue of US dipomatic support for
> > Israel on the political issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
>
> I completely agree. That has to be explained by a wider discussion of the
> American political imaginaire, such as you are engaged in. My point was
> only that this is largely separate from the question of real strategic
> interests, to which the suffering of innocents is irrelevant so long as
> they can't do anything about it.
Well, that's the thing I wonder about. Is the US refusal to impose the one solution that the whole world agrees on purely a matter of ideology? I think in this case ideology and realpolitik are not so distinct or separate. What did Edward Walker say at the Harper's panel? Forcing a solution on Israel would entail a loss of credibility for the US. I think there's something to this.
There's a guy many people haven't heard of named Edward Djerejian, who's sort of a behind-the-scenes godfather of GOP policy toward the Middle East. Sure, the super-hardliners see him as an incorrigible Arabist, but he always had good relationships with Israeli officials when he was in government. He's now the head of the Baker Institute - a major capo in the Bush-clan mafia.
He gave a speech last year outlining his grand take on the Middle East today. He outlined several trends of note shaping the region. Two of them are, I think, related. The first you might find surprising: a renaissance of "the idea of pan-Arab nationalism as a united front against Israel", despite the "decisive set back" it suffered in the Gulf War. Of course, he blamed the renaissance all on Saddam, much the way Cold War officials used to blame every gurgle of radicalism in the Third World on the Kremlin. The other factor was the rising prestige among the Arab Street of Hezbollah, which provided a successful model: kick the Israelis out of occupied territory by force.
These guys think that the forced withdrawal from Lebanon - though ultimately unavoidable - came with a cost: a loss of "credibility" for Israel. And inseparable from that was a concomitant emboldening of the forces of "pan-Arab nationalism" - a doctrine utterly incompatible with the US's own interests in the Middle East - for which Hezbollah is an avatar.
When they look at the West Bank, they see another potential Lebanon - another potential forced withdrawal - but one with much more profound significance in the Midde Eastern imagination. So they want to avoid seeing Israel being forced out. But on the other hand, they want to see the conflict tamped down and guided under the aegis of the US, to prevent the Arab regimes from being undermined.
That was the logic of Oslo. And when you look at the section of Djerjian's speech where he lays out his policy recommendations, what do you know? He's in favor of continuing the Oslo-style process. (Of course, he had some minor tactical criticisms of Clinton's handling of the policy.)
Yes, there are hardline forces in the Bush administration - Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz - who reject this reasoning and think the US will come out unscathed if Ariel Sharon gets a free hand to pillage and destroy in the West Bank. And because of Karl Rove and the Christian Right, those forces got to run the policy for a week. Hence the atrocities in Ramallah and Nablus.
But though I hate inside-the-Beltway Kremlinology, let me put to you that on many policy issues, the guy who actually has the final say on choosing between Powell's advice and Rumsfeld's advice is Bush Sr., with whom W. is reported to converse on the phone *every day*. And Bush's view is Djerjian's view. So right now there is a flurry of interagency activity to figure out what the substance of Colin Powell's mission is going to be. And I think that despite the fondest hopes of Wolfowitz and Perle, it will end up being a lot like Djerjian's vision - a continuation of Oslo, gradual negotiations, etc.
Except that Ariel Sharon is the prime minister and it's almost impossible to imagine him going along smoothly with this. So it will inevitably lead to friction and conflicts with Israel and it will drag out for the rest of Bush's term. There will be more suicide bombings and Sharon will keep wanting to respond with a massive conquest but the US won't let him. And it could end up completely derailing Bush's "war on terrorism" agenda, as well as unravelling the new Bush doctrine.
Seth