Thursday, January 8, 2004
A meeting between Libyan and Israeli officials, at first denied, has now been confirmed as having taken place last month in Paris. This article (in the Boston Globe of all places) casts the entire event, and the hints of defrosting of long ossified positions across the region, as a product of American leadership backed up with the Big Stick.
Boston.com / News / World / Officials from Israel report talks with Libya
Khadafy surprised most of the world last month by abruptly announcing that he was ready to dismantle his weapons of mass destruction and allow international monitors to carry out inspections. Other countries in the region also have taken steps recently that could be perceived as gestures to please the United States, including Egyptian and Syrian overtures to Israel, Iran's decision to allow unrestricted inspections of its nuclear facilities, and an Iranian effort to mend ties with Egypt.
"I think you can safely call this pax Americana," said Ephraim Inbar, a political scientist who heads the BESA Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv. "The Iraq war has made Libya and other countries fear the United States. They're trying to find roads to Washington."[...]
And yet I keep hearing administration critics argue we're not engaged in the Middle East, particularly with regard to Israel. I heard Wesley Clark try to make that point, and his solution amounted to, "Well, we need to talk, and we need to keep talking, and sending people to talk and talk and talk some more." That's been tried, of course. Bill Clinton was good on talking on the Middle East. I'll tell you what happened every time Clinton's envoy, Anthony Zinni, arrived in Israel to talk...some Palestinian blew themselves and a lot of other people the Kingdom Come in order to make a point. Im picking on Clark a bit here based on what I heard to make a point, even though what he actually displays as his position on his web site is pretty well identical to what the administration has already been doing.
What I take from that is that in spite of what the campaigners and the partisan commentators may wish for, Bush is doing about as well as can reasonably be expected given the material he has to work with. No more steeping off the train waiving a piece of paper in the air a la Oslo. What counts now are results.
Inbar cited recent steps taken by Iran and Syria as more evidence of the change wrought on the Middle East by the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Iran announced in November it would allow international inspections of its nuclear plants, where the United States and Israel suspect a clandestine weapons program exists. More recently, Iran moved to restore diplomatic ties with Egypt, 25 years after severing them over Cairo's peace accord with Israel.
Among Iran's steps to mend relations with Egypt was the Tehran City Council's renaming of a street that had honored Khaled Islambouli, an Islamic militant who took part in the assassination of former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981. And last month, President Bashar Assad of Syria offered in an interview with The New York Times to immediately renew peace talks with Israel.
"We're seeing a region in transition," said Yehudit Ronen, a specialist on Libya who teaches at Tel Aviv University. "No one believes Khadafy has suddenly become a lover of Israel or a white dove. . . . He needs to get friendly with the US."
Of course, conditions still aren't perfect, but that's something that can only change gradually. What the Globe doesn't tell you is what Iran changed the name of that street to - Intifada Street.
Update: Jim Hoagland in today's Washington Post: to paraphrase: "Good job in Libya, hands full in Pakistan."
