WASHINGTON — George W. Bush put the credibility of the American presidency on the line in the Middle East Thursday in a high-risk, high-stakes play that he must now see through. A fed-up Bush directed an unprecedented set of detailed presidential demands to Arab and Israeli leaders who were each in their own way undermining Bush’s war on global terrorism.
Make no mistake: The president’s overriding goal was not to bring instant peace between Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon, an objective that is as immediately unrealistic as it is ultimately noble. Bush’s main purpose in speaking out now is to halt a rapidly spreading erosion of the force and clarity of his campaign against terrorist networks and their state sponsors.
His brief televised speech from the Rose Garden was not intended to change the details of U.S. policy, but to solidify its core as Bush sees it. Bush found a language, a cadence and an approach appropriate to the all-important task of establishing that the war on terrorism is and will continue to have a priority above all other U.S. priorities. If the intervention was late — as I believe — it was not too little when it finally came.
"Enough is enough," he said to both sides, calling on the Israelis to halt their week-old offensive and telling Arab governments they will never get a Palestinian state by terror attacks on Israeli civilians. The calculated balance contained in his joint ultimatum to Arafat and Sharon did not mask Bush’s underlying sentiment: Arafat’s failure "to control terrorism" is far more to blame for the carnage of the past 18 months than anything Sharon has done — and it must end.
As he did earlier on Iraq, Bush chose the hard version of the differing policy approaches urged on him by his advisers, and then gave a speech to compel them all to fall into line behind him. Colin Powell’s State Department, which had favored a more conciliatory line toward Arab governments and Iran, has again been overtaken by the more hard-nosed approach of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld.
Powell, burned by Syrian duplicity and his own unsteady performance on his first trip to the Middle East a year ago, has resisted being pushed back into the conflict. His recent role has been to mollify the Arabs and European allies with rhetoric and U.N. resolutions that Bush tolerated but never publicly supported.
That ambiguity — whether created by presidential indecision or more likely by a desire to have it both ways for as long as possible — ended Thursday. Powell goes to the Middle East next week carrying directives and priorities carved in stone by Bush, with no room for major improvisation.
The president’s speech also puts Arab leaders — beginning with Saudi Arabia and Egypt — on notice that they bear responsibility for the climate of hatred that prevails in the region and for its corrosive impact on Bush’s goals in fighting international terrorism. His praise for Crown Prince Abdullah’s peace plan was appropriate, and appropriately secondary to his central message to the Arabs.
"Stop inciting violence," Bush said directly to them at one point. Suicide bombers "are not martyrs. They are murderers," and should be described that way. And he specifically warned Syria, Iran and Iraq that continuing material support for the terrorist wings of Hamas and Hezbollah and for suicide bombings would be seen as a direct challenge to U.S. power in the region that would trigger dire consequences.
If history is a guide, Sharon will be tempted to play for time, continuing his military advance while blaming the Palestinians for not letting him stop. He should instead take the golden bridge of retreat that Bush has opened for him. The president did not criticize in any way the re-invasion of the West Bank as it had unfolded up to the time of the speech. Bush also did not make any demand on Israel that it has not already conditionally agreed to, including a halt to settlement-building on the West Bank.
Bush did not, in sum, ask Sharon to do anything that a reasonable person would not do when faced with an ultimatum from the president of the United States. Bush spoke as "a committed friend of Israel." He demanded nothing that betrayed that self-description.
And he asked the Arabs for nothing that they should not be doing in the first place. It was not a speech of concessions, either given or sought. It was a speech of clarity that enumerated common-sense duties and warned of the disasters that lie ahead — for everyone — if those duties are not fulfilled.
Jim Hoagland can be reached at The Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071-9200 or hoaglandj@washpost.com.
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