Stardate 20030427.1656

(On Screen): A rational person involved in any kind of negotiating process will have to acknowledge that when their position is weak, they will have to settle for much less than they might have wanted. They need to marshal their few carrots and sticks and to use them on the truly critical points, and let the rest go. They have to become ruthless in evaluating their own demands and to figure out what is essential and what is a luxury.

Yasser Arafat is now a luxury the Palestinians can no longer afford, but it appears that the Palestinians collectively have not yet realized it. Of course, in a police state or any situation where death squads operate, it's not really safe to be a public dissident and to express opinions which are critical of the party line, and so it's always difficult to judge the true opinion of people in such a situation. The people in Iraq would, if you asked them, talk about their love for Saddam and their willingness to fight and die for him, as long as his regime was in power and informers were everywhere. By the same token, you can't really judge how Palestinians collectively view Arafat or the current political course that Arafat's administration is following.

Like all wannabe autocrats, Arafat thinks that he's the essential man. Whether anyone else thinks that doesn't matter; Arafat is more concerned with his own grasp on power than he is with actually trying to make the lot of Palestinians better, and he has demonstrated this again and again. And he continues to do so.

Last year, President Bush completely changed the world calculation about the situation with the Palestinians and Israelis. He came out in favor of a Palestinian state, and said that such a state could be founded quite soon (a couple of years), but only if the Palestinians implemented true reform. And he made clear that based on a long record of broken Palestinian promises that he would only accept accomplishment, and that the Palestinians would have to implement reform before being rewarded with their own state. And a critical part of that reform would be elimination of Arafat from power, for Bush had concluded (correctly in my opinion) that Arafat was a major part of the problem and that the problem could not ultimately be solved until he was deposed. Since then, the US has refused to directly negotiate with Arafat and has insisted that there must be elections and a new Arafat-less government in place before the US would again begin substantial negotiations with the Palestinians.

Well, an election was scheduled but I don't think anyone was too surprised when Arafat came up with an excuse to cancel it. But he ultimately was forced to select a "Prime Minister" to augment his "Presidency", and to let that Prime Minister select a cabinet which would take over most running of the Palestinian Authority.

Some have been highly skeptical about the entire process, smelling yet another in a long line of grand Palestinian Posturings, where grandiose gestures and promises are made which contain no substance. They think that the Prime Minister would be a puppet, or would be as hamstrung in trying to bring about reform as the elected government in Iran. I suspect that this is indeed how Arafat is thinking, for he won't give up any more power than he absolutely must until he's dead. But whether that's how Mahmoud Abbas, the PM designate, is thinking is a different question.

I'm not in a position to judge whether he's a "reformed terrorist" or an unreformed one. What I do know is that there was no chance of anyone being selected for this job who would not be seen here in the US as being somewhat tainted. Saints don't live long in the Palestinian territories, and none of them gain national stature.

Still, there was and remains a real power struggle going on, with Arafat still thinking that somehow it will be possible to pretend to create a PM to fool Bush while still retaining true control and power and continuing to defend the system of graft and patronage which is the ultimate source of his power. Unless it was all a grand ploy, which doesn't seem likely, apparently Abbas actually was thinking in terms of beginning some kind of process of change – although whether it would be proper to characterize that change as "reform" is a different question.

Well, they finally worked it out, or claim they did. But now Abbas seems intent on throwing it all away. There hasn't been any election, which is a problem, but the Bush administration was still sending positive signals about being willing to at least talk to the new Abbas government. But Abbas either thinks his position is stronger than it is, or else actually realizes it's weaker than he'd like. Either he thinks that the US will be willing to actually pay to talk to him, or else his position is precarious and he fears being deposed by Arafat if he gets out of line.

Palestinian prime minister-designate Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday he would not visit foreign capitals to discuss peace moves until Israel allowed President Yasser Arafat to travel freely again.

Analysts say Abbas fears that accepting a White House invitation would make him look like a U.S. lackey in Palestinian eyes unless Israel stops trying to isolate Arafat. Washington, Israel's key ally, wants the veteran president sidelined.

As with all diplomatic maneuvers, there's a degree of double-talk here. Israel's policy is that Arafat can leave whenever he wants, but if he does they don't promise to let him come back. I think that it can be assumed that they would not, which means that any kind of foreign trip Arafat takes amounts to the beginning of exile. Certainly Arafat hasn't been willing to risk it, which is why he's been rotting in the ruins of his headquarters in Ramalla for the last year.

Given an Israeli election which created a new government which is more hard line, and no longer includes the dovish Labour party, the chance of Israel responding positively to this request is nil. What Abbas is actually saying is that if the US wants to negotiate with him, then the US will have to force Israel to let Arafat travel by promising to let him return.

That's not going to happen. There's not the slightest chance of Bush making that kind of concession. Right now the Palestinians overall, and Arafat in particular, are down in the "mud" region of the Bush administration's appreciation scale.

And I think that the Palestinians have a lot more bad news coming. Losing Saddam and losing the support (especially the money) he was giving them is going to start hurting a lot. Having the US apply pressure to Syria and Saudi Arabia to also cease supporting the Palestinians is going to hurt even more.

And when the "road map for peace" is revealed, it's going to be a real road map, but it won't be one that Arafat can follow. The Palestinians will be able to follow it, but only if they boot him off the bus.

David Warren comments on a new attitude which has emerged in Washington, where the Bush administration is increasingly ceasing to actually care about world approval or disapproval, and is increasingly willing to act unilaterally. He refers to this as the "we don't care" policy; it might be better characterized as "Watch us". When we get told that we're not permitted to do something, increasingly the answer will be, "Oh? Watch us!"

Watch us conquer Iraq. Watch us occupy it afterwards and administer it without UN help. Watch us sell Iraq's oil no matter what the UNSC does or says. Watch us search for Iraq's WMDs and destroy any we find without any participation by UNMOVIC or the IAEA.

And watch us propose a new roadmap for peace in the middle East without consulting with the other members of the group which originally proposed something like it, and without relying on the UN to provide monitors and peacekeeping troops to implement it, and without getting approval from anyone or even letting them know what it's going to be before it gets revealed.

What it means is that the Bush administration has finally decided that such things as EU disapproval, and UN everything, and anything coming out of Paris, are now irrelevant. It's not even worth bothering with them. They won't so much be answered as ignored.

The plan was, in theory, formulated and sponsored by the so-called "Quartet of Mideast mediators", which was to say the US, the UN, the EU and Russia. What I think will develop now is that the latter three will have no say in the plan and no involvement in carrying it out, and if they bitch they'll be ignored.

I can't find it now, but I read an article a couple of days ago which said that the US was going to reveal a new "roadmap to peace" and it was going to be in three phases. Each phase would have to be accomplished before the next phase could begin.

And what the article said was that the first phase would be Palestinian reform. A new government, an end to corruption, a crackdown on militants, a total cessation of attacks against Israel, institution of something like a real Palestinian police force and real courts, and as a practical matter complete elimination of any remaining power held by Arafat.

More critically, achievements would be confirmed by foreign inspectors who would be on the ground in the Palestinian territories, and they'd be American, not UN. If so, and I think it's true, then it means there's be no wink-wink-nudge-nudge fudging, and no rewards for "good tries" or promises or symbolic acts or doing at least a little. The Bush administration still views Arafat, and the Palestinians overall, as totally unreliable and untrustworthy and isn't going to give them any benefit of the doubt. What it means is that the inspectors would not demonstrate the kind of primary dedication to peace and neutrality which so deeply crippled the misbegotten inspections in Iraq. With the inspectors being American, they'd be frankly partisan.

Once there's real reform, as confirmed by American inspectors who look at Palestinian claims with a jaded eye, then the second phase would begin which would include such things as an Israeli pullout and establishment of borders and a significant movement towards autonomy. It would also involved Israel dismantling some of the most contentious settlements (which Sharon has already said he's willing to consider).

Finally, I think it's going to be presented more or less with the comment, "Take it or leave it."

The Europeans will scream and gibber and shriek if that's what's revealed. They'll condemn it up one wall and down the other. And I think that the Bush administration will ignore them. As Warren says, "the perceived need for American self-justification before the international community" (I'm translating from French) has evaporated.

Or at least some of the Europeans will do so. Those in Europe who have been primarily involved in this whole thing mostly tend to follow a strong anti-Israeli, pro-Arab line, and their own interest in it is to work for a deal which will ingratiate them with the Arabs. So most of their attention has been applied to how much and what kinds of concessions can be wrung out of the Israelis, in hopes of trying to make the deal as sweet for the Palestinians as possible.

Of course, those same Europeans have virtually no leverage with Israel now, and part of why they wanted the US involved in this process originally was the hope that they could somehow prevail in the international star chamber where the deal was worked out, and somehow or other convince the US to go along with a deal which was extremely bad for Israel, and then rely on the US to use its leverage with Israel to force the Israelis to accept it. That was certainly what Solana had in mind when he said that he wanted an "American partner" to work on a deal last January. (He didn't get it.)

Bush made his decision about the situation last May. I think we're going to find that the roadmap, once released, is a fulfillment of his new policy toward the Palestinians, not a backtrack from it. And the critical feature of it is that the Palestinians will have to make the first moves, and they'll have to be genuine and significant, and we will decide if they're good enough and not the "world community".