President Bush's trip to Israel next week will do nothing for the Arab-Israeli peace process and will in fact resemble an existential Samuel Becket play, Middle East experts said this morning in a briefing.
"In some ways this is the road show cast of 'Waiting for Godot,'" said Anthony Cordesman, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to reporters who will travel with the president to the Middle East.
"Basically you're going out there with the president to basically set a marker while everybody waits for the next president," Mr. Cordesman said.
Jon Alterman, director of CSIS's Middle East program, was equally morose in his predictions for Mr. Bush's trip.
"It's hard to remember a less auspicious time to pursue an Arab-Israeli peace agreement," Mr. Alterman said.
Mr. Bush is traveling to Jerusalem on Tuesday to celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary, and will also try to push forward talks begun last fall in Annapolis to define the contours of a Palestinian state.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas agreed last fall to reach an agreement by the end of Mr. Bush's time in office, but Mr. Alterman said that "a peace deal will not be concluded while President Bush is in office."
"Right now neither leader has the power to make peace," Mr. Alterman said.
In fact, Mr. Olmert "is in crisis ... and is perhaps days from being forced from office," Mr. Alterman said (read Josh Mitnick's piece in our paper today for more on that).
In fact, Mr. Alterman said that among Israelis there is "a real sense that this isn't what it was supposed to be, that Israel's 60th anniversary is a story of survival but not a story of triumph."
Many Israelis are thinking they "may remain in conflict for its entire existence as a state," Mr. Alterman said.
"There is this tone of sobriety which pervades a lot of discussions," he said.
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UPDATE — 11:49 a.m. — Cordesman and Alterman are equally pessimistic about the president's ability to move the Saudi Arabians on oil production, during his visit to Riyadh next week.
Mr. Cordesman said the U.S. has little to offer Saudi King Abdullah.
"We can't deliver on peace, we can't deliver on arms transfers, we can't deliver on the Iraq that Saudi Arabia wants," he said. "The market isn't being driven by us. It's being driven by China, by India … which guarantees a market into the long term."
The Saudis, Mr. Alterman said, will "be polite, but they're not really going to put themselves out to help this president."
The Saudis did pump more oil during the first Gulf War to keep prices low, but "this relationship has been unalterably changed, partly by Sept. 11, partly by what's happened in Iraq, partly by a Saudi sense that the United States isn't nearly as competent as they thought," Mr. Alterman said.
— Jon Ward, White House correspondent, The Washington Times
Comments (2)
The Bush Administration spurned the Saudi's peace offer and systematically undermined their laborious efforts to bring Hamas and the PA into a coalition government. And now he's expecting them to help him out? I think everyone is waiting for the next president. I think the DOW will go up by a thousand points and oil will go down by $40 per barrel the minute he leaves office, provided that Bush and Cheney don't drag us into a war with Iran beforehand. If that happens, then the DOW will go down by another thousand points and oil will go up another $40 a barrel from where both indicators are right now.
Posted by George Robertson | May 8, 2008 12:34 PM
I don't recall seeing these aspersertions cast upon Bill Clinton when he was a lame duck. He held that marathon Israeli-Palestine session at Campo David, trying desperately to achieve a nobel prize, er, uh, a just piece prior to exiting his office.
Why is Bill Clinton hailed as a peacemaker and George Bush hailed aa a doofus? Is it because Bill Clinton was "right" on abortion, and everything else comes second to the syncophantic press?
Posted by Concerned | May 20, 2008 1:32 PM