VOL. XLVI
No 18
The Political Scene
The Iraqis have decided – and the Americans have apparently endorsed the decision – to hold a meeting to set up a provisional government within a month. The international Quartet’s roadmap to Israeli-Palestinian peace has finally been unveiled. The Americans’ decision to withdraw virtually all their forces from Saudi Arabia brings to an end a chapter in the relationship between Riyadh and Washington that has not been entirely happy.
A Provisional Government?
On 1 May, President George Bush declared formally that “major combat operations on Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the US and our allies have prevailed.” This is an assessment with which few people would disagree (although there are those who might question his simultaneous assertion that “the liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror”). But if it was clear that the Americans had won the war, little else was. For one thing, it emerged – in media reports confirmed by “a senior US official” – on 30 April that the Americans have appointed a former head of the State Department’s counter-terrorism office, L Paul Bremer, as “civilian administrator” in Iraq to oversee the transition to democratic rule, a role previously assumed to have been assigned to retired general Jay Garner. (The relationship between Mr Bremer and Mr Garner has not been spelled out, but reports describe Mr Bremer as “in charge of a transition team that includes retired army Lt Gen Jay Garner and Zalmay Khalilzad, the special White House envoy in the Persian Gulf region.”) Meanwhile the Iraqis took a step in the direction of the transition Mr Bremer is to oversee in Baghdad on 28 April at a meeting of some 250 representatives of Iraq’s diverse political, ethnic and religious groups which produced a statement to the effect that “all efforts should be made to hold a national conference within four weeks…to select a transitional Iraqi government.” However, while the meeting managed to agree on the idea of a national conference to select a transitional (or provisional) government (rather than authority), reports suggested that, in addition to the more or less traditional differences between the various participants, disagreements had also arisen between the exiled opposition groups and their domestic counterparts over the role to be played by the US, with the latter – curiously – favoring a stronger American presence. The Americans for their part backed the Baghdad meeting’s decision (and apparently the idea of a forming a provisional government) on 1 May when Mr Khalilzad met with senior officials of various exile groups, including the Iranian-backed Shi’a Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and, according to an Iraqi National Congress (INC) spokesman, “endorsed the idea of a provisional government for Iraq that will be formed at a national conference to be held in four weeks time.” So, with the caveat that the creation of the new Iraq is still very much a work in progress both in Baghdad and in Washington, it is possible that by the end of this month some sort of political entity may begin to emerge from the rubble of the Ba’thist state.
The Roadmap
The Palestinian parliament had barely finished approving the cabinet of Prime Minister Mahmud 'Abbas (by a vote of 53-18) on 29 April, when a suicide bomber killed three people outside a Tel Aviv nightclub in the early hours of 30 April, which presumably can be taken as a vote of no confidence in the new government from the likes of the Islamic group Hamas. Nonetheless, on the same day, the international Quartet (the US, UN, EU and Russia) finally presented to the parties concerned the long-awaited roadmap to an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. In the preamble, the destination of this “performance-based and goal-driven” plan is described as “a final and comprehensive settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by 2005” resulting in “the emergence of an independent, democratic and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel.” This settlement will be “based on the foundations of the Madrid conference, the principle of land for peace, UNSCRs 242, 338 and 1397, agreements previously reached by the parties and the initiative of Saudi Crown Prince ‘Abd Allah.” The Quartet “will assist and facilitate implementation of the plan” and will “meet regularly at senior levels to evaluate the parties’ performance on implementation of the plan,” which “establishes a realistic timeline for implementation.” However, the Quartet notes that “as a performance-based plan, progress will require and depend upon the good faith efforts of the parties, and their compliance with each of the obligations outlined below.”
These are grouped into three phases, the first of which, lasting from the present to May 2003, comes under the heading “ending terror and violence, normalizing Palestinian life and building Palestinian institutions.” At the start of Phase 1 – i.e. now – the Palestinian leadership “issues unequivocal statement reiterating Israel’s right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire to end armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere.” The Israeli leadership, for its part, “issues unequivocal statement affirming its commitment to the two-state vision of an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state living on peace and security alongside Israel, as expressed by President Bush, and calling for an immediate end to violence against Palestinians everywhere.” The roadmap then enumerates various measures to be taken during Phase 1 regarding security, Palestinian institution-building (including “credible” progress towards a constitution), humanitarian response, civil society and settlements. Under the latter heading, Israel “immediately dismantles settlement outposts erected since March 2001” and “consistent with the Mitchell Report…freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).”
In Phase II – “Transition – June 2003-December 2003” – “efforts are focused on the option of creating an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty…as a way station to a permanent status settlement.” Phase II “starts after Palestinian elections and ends with possible creation of an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders in 2003.” Progress into it “will be based upon the consensus judgement of the Quartet of whether conditions are appropriate to proceed, taking onto account performance of both parties.” The roadmap enumerates various steps to be taken in Phase II, including an international conference “convened by the Quartet, in consultation with the parties, immediately after the successful conclusion of Palestinian elections, to support Palestinian economic recovery and launch a process leading to establishment of an independent Palestinian state.”
Progress into Phase III – “permanent status agreement and the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -2004-2005” – will be “based on consensus judgement of the Quartet and taking into account actions of both parties and Quartet monitoring.” The objectives of the final phase “are consolidation of reform and stabilization of Palestinian institutions, sustained, effective Palestinian security performance and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations aimed at a permanent status agreement in 2005.” To this end a second international conference will be convened “at the beginning of 2004…to launch a process with the active, sustained and operational support of the Quartet leading to a final permanent status resolution in 2005, including on borders, Jerusalem, refugees, settlements; and to support progress toward a comprehensive Middle East settlement between Israel and Lebanon and Israel and Syria, to be achieved as soon as possible.”
This plan is nothing if not ambitious, particularly in its timetable to end a conflict that has lasted more than a century, and it would probably be charitable to describe the reception it has generally received as skeptical. Indeed, it would be tedious to enumerate the many reasons that have been cited for its probable failure. Suffice it to say that in the longer run (i.e. next year), in the absence of good will (and there is precious little of that around at the moment between Israelis and Palestinians), a settlement will require more forcible American action than is likely during an election year. However, it may not even take that long for the roadmap’s shortcomings to become apparent, since it is hard to see the present Israeli government endorsing an “independent, viable, sovereign” Palestinian state, let alone dismantling settlement outposts and freezing other settlement activity, by the end of this month.
US To Withdraw Forces From Saudi Arabia
Although neither side would say it, the figure looming behind the 29 April announcement that the US is to withdraw virtually all its forces from Saudi Arabia was unmistakably that of ‘Usama bin Ladin. Instead, both the Saudis and the Americans attributed the decision to purely practical considerations. Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz told a 29 April press conference that after the end of Operation Southern Watch (the no-fly zone in south Iraq), “there is no need for them to remain,” adding that “this does not mean that we requested them to leave, and it does not mean that our friendship has been affected.” US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, for his part, said that “we discussed the changes that have taken place in the region. It is now a safer region because of the change of regime in Iraq. With the end of Operation Southern Watch and the successful liberation of the Iraqi people, we have had discussions about our ability to rearrange our forces in this part of the world.” Nonetheless, there is no denying that the withdrawal eliminates a major embarrassment for the Saudis and a rallying point for Islamic extremists, and in that sense is a win-win decision for both Washington and Riyadh. It also means that, with a symmetry rarely seen in regional affairs, while it was Saddam Husain’s invasion of Kuwait that prompted the Saudis to ask for American intervention in the first place, it was his downfall that cleared the way for the Americans to withdraw. It remains a moot point, however, whether that is because Washington no longer needs to keep its forces in the region for Southern Watch or because it intends to “rearrange” them elsewhere, possibly to Iraq, for other purposes. Last week, Mr Rumsfeld was less than convincing when he denied US press reports that the Americans were showing signs of being interested in bases in Iraq. And while it is easy enough to imagine Iraqi governments (particularly Shi’a ones) that would never allow such a development, there are also groups in Iraq that are ready to contemplate the idea, as Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) military affairs chief Brusik Nuri Shawais demonstrated on 29 April when he said that “the Americans ought to stay to restore internal security, get the administration and public enterprises running again, and to reconstruct. After an interim period that should last around a year, the coalition forces should leave Iraq, but we can consider the US having military bases there afterward. We need a strong alliance with the Americans. Iraq no longer has an army. The US must help us to build a united force.”
Charles Snow