The Perils Of The Peace Process: It Will Weaken Abbas

from AEI:

The Perils of the Peace Process: Talks Will Weaken Abbas By John R. Bolton

New York Daily News

Wednesday, August 25, 2010











Secretary of State Clinton's announcement last week that direct Israeli-Palestinian talks will recommence next month poses considerable risk for the United States. The odds are high these negotiations will fail. If so, and combined with U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq, President Obama's commitment to begin withdrawing NATO forces from Afghanistan next summer and Iran's continuing progress toward nuclear weapons, failure means that Washington's Middle East influence will decline.



The conventional wisdom is that it never hurts to talk, and that the United States loses nothing by pursuing an active "peace process," even without concrete results. This is badly wrong, because negotiations are never cost-free. In fact, diplomacy, like all human activity, has both costs and benefits, and the issue in any specific case is whether the benefits of negotiating outweigh the risks. And for Obama, acting as a facilitator or mediator, the key risk is that failure brings the perception of weakness and incompetence.



The notion that solving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute will inevitably lead to progress on other Middle Eastern conflicts is diplomacy's version of Trofim Lysenko's genetic theory.Clinton stressed her hope that the negotiations could resolve all contentious issues between the parties in one year. Of course, the talks could easily head into a ditch well before then, but the arbitrary time limits, as in earlier failed efforts - including by the Bush administration, of which I was a part - show how artificial the entire negotiating framework actually is. There is simply no evidence that any behind-the-scenes progress has been made on key "final status" issues (borders, Jerusalem, the Palestinians' "right of return" to Israel) that have sunk innumerable prior peace processes.



Diplomacy, even the most artful diplomacy, can bridge only gaps that are bridgeable, and at the right time.



Even what seems like success can conceal hidden costs. Thus, for example, merely announcing that direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations would begin on Sept. 2 had winners and losers. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the biggest winner, having insisted for 18 months that Israel would not agree to any preconditions before starting direct talks. Achieving this objective is a significant Netanyahu victory.



By contrast, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wanted ironclad assurances that Israel's West Bank settlement activity would be halted before negotiations began, which he failed to achieve. Abbas thus enters the negotiations in a weakened position, merely hoping that Israel will extend its voluntary construction moratorium, and the almost inevitable breakdown of the talks will leave him weaker still, and exposed to harsh criticism.



Moreover, by raising Arab expectations that almost certainly will not be met, Obama has actually impaired his own efforts to improve U.S. standing among Muslims. The administration's inability even to see that risk is testimony to its near-theological zeal for the peace process.



Thus, ironically, the Obama administration, by forcing the talks into being, has undercut Abbas, weakening its own designated Palestinian leader. Many believe that the Palestinian Authority has neither the legitimacy nor the capability to make hard concessions to Israel, or to carry through with its commitments and obligations even if a peace agreement could be achieved. Abbas' failure in the coming talks will only reinforce this perception, and may well be a death blow to the remaining shreds of his leadership. Moreover, while the talks' collapse may not immediately or directly strengthen the Hamas terrorists, that is almost inevitably one of the most serious long-term consequences.



The human and political resources already invested in Obama's ceaseless effort to resume direct negotiations also represent an enormous "opportunity cost," as the economists say. By diverting U.S. time and attention from more pressing Middle East problems, particularly Iran's nuclear weapons program and its worldwide support for terrorism, peace process diplomacy allows graver threats to grow.



The notion that solving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute will inevitably lead to progress on other Middle Eastern conflicts is diplomacy's version of Trofim Lysenko's genetic theory. Lysenko argued that acquired characteristics could be inherited, and Soviet leaders virtually worshiped his theory because it fit their Communist preconceptions. In fact, the theory and the "data" supporting it were fraudulent.



So it is with the Middle East peace process. Ignoring inconvenient reality, it goes on forever, fueled by the theology that if only Israel were suitably constrained, the region would be peaceful. For the Obama administration, the entire effort constitutes an enormous wasted opportunity and foreshadows a potential diplomatic and political embarrassment of considerable proportions. Why are we squandering U.S. prestige on this sinking ship?



John R. Bolton is a senior fellow at AEI.