By Jim Hoagland (THE WASHINGTON POST, 05/03/06):
Backlash against democratic change is on the march in the Middle East one year after freedom seemed to be surging ahead there. This cyclical ebb and flow of forces should be the cause of adjustment in the West, not of despair or of abandoning the push for democratic reform in the region.
The illusion that Lebanon's weak democratic forces would easily shake off Syria's stranglehold on their country has been dispelled. So have hopes that elections in Iran, Iraq, Egypt and the Palestinian territories would automatically enhance or entrench political reform or moderation. But pronouncing democracy in the Middle East a failure after this year of reactive turmoil overshoots the runway again -- in the opposite direction.
The Bush administration should instead adjust the pace of its strong push for democracy in Muslim lands to reflect the changes it has helped produce. This applies most urgently to the long war between Israelis and Palestinians.
President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have outlined a generational commitment to replacing a stability of tyranny long underwritten by U.S. policy with the unpredictability of free choice. Helping establish a democratic Palestinian state that would live in peace with Israel has been both centerpiece and condition for Bush's long-term vision.
But the American president must also cope with the inconveniences of democracy. Bush has not a generation but less than three years left in office. It is time for him and Rice to focus on their political mortality; that is, to focus ruthlessly on tangible actions that would clear the way for their successors to achieve the grand design of expanding freedom.
The electoral victory of the radicals of Hamas -- who refuse to recognize peace pacts reached with Israel or to negotiate any new accords with the Jewish state -- underlines both the need and the possibility of this shifting of gears by Washington. Hamas spokesmen say they will remain peaceful as long as Israel unilaterally concedes what Hamas wants.
Instead of getting bogged down in tactical disputes over whether to have diplomatic contacts with Hamas as a prelude to resuming peace negotiations, the Bush team and its allies should commit themselves to creating the conditions for the controlled separation of Israelis and Palestinians through effective and equitable security barriers by Jan. 1, 2009.
Separation has replaced negotiation as the only viable approach to coexistence -- at least for the time left to Bush -- for both Israelis and Palestinians.
The immediate American role should be to provide the push and the assurances needed to get Israel to duplicate Ariel Sharon's unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip and yield more than 90 percent of the West Bank, while compensating the Palestinians with land swaps for the few housing areas close to Jerusalem not evacuated.
The arrangement of de facto frontiers for a two-state solution would resemble what are known in Israel as the Clinton parameters, which emerged from Israeli-Palestinian talks at Camp David under President Bill Clinton in 2000 and then in Taba, Egypt, in January 2001.
It is not as good a solution as a formal peace treaty would be. But as former secretary of state George Shultz, who thinks deeply about the Mideast, told me recently, the failure of the Oslo accords and the Camp David talks has to be acknowledged and corrected:
"The only thing the Palestinians have at this point to offer the Israelis is a willingness to participate in constructing a secure environment. But if the Palestinians won't commit to that and the Israelis can produce that outcome themselves through security barriers and other means," negotiations become pointless. "There are times when it is best not to try to get people to agree on a finality."
But Bush cannot afford to have stagnation on the Israeli-Palestinian front as he tries to win wider Arab acceptance of his reform agenda. One way to stress movement is to make it clear that the United States supports a drawing of the line of separation as close as possible to the 1967 borders and will insist on a humane operation of the line of security strips and barriers -- known as "the fence" to the Israelis and as "the wall" to their critics.
Such moves will help reduce the baggage that Bush's successors must carry when it comes their time to promote democracy and seek other timely change in the Middle East. Lightening their load is a worthy goal even for a personally ambitious president.