May 22, 2008
NEWS ANALYSIS
Advice From White House Is Not Always Followed
By HELENE COOPER
WA****NGTON - Israel, America's staunchest ally in the Middle East, just
became the latest example of a country that has decided it is better to
deal
with its foes than to ignore them.
The announcement that Israel has entered into comprehensive peace talks
with
Syria is at odds with the course counseled by the Bush administration,
which
initially opposed such talks in private conversations with Israelis,
according to Israeli and American officials. A week ago, President Bush
delivered a speech to the Israeli Parliament likening attempts to
"negotiate
with the terrorists and radicals" to appeasement before World War II.
"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Mr. Bush said. "As Nazi
tanks
crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared, 'Lord, if only
I
could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have
an obligation to call this what it is: the false comfort of appeasement,
which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
But in many ways, the Bush administration's own policies appear to be at
odds with his thesis.
While Mr. Bush and his advisers have repeatedly scorned the idea of
talking
to enemies without first getting preconditions met, administration policy
over the last seven years has been far more nuanced. In fact, the United
States under the Bush administration has shown a sliding definition of
just
when it is beneficial to talk to whom.
Under Mr. Bush, the United States has held direct talks with Libya (which
has admitted responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which
killed 270 people); sent envoys and a warm presidential letter to North
Korea (which detonated a nuclear device in 2006); and even participated,
through American diplomats in Iraq, in talks with Iran (which the United
States has accused of backing attacks against American forces in Iraq).
American diplomats do not talk to Hezbollah or Hamas - both militant
Islamic
organizations that Wa****ngton considers terrorist groups. But while the
Bush
administration long ago withdrew its ambassador from Syria, the United
States does business with its government, which backs Hezbollah, and which
the State Department has designated a state sponsor of terrorism.
So what was Mr. Bush talking about last week when he compared negotiations
with terrorists and radicals with "the false comfort of appeasement"?
Inside the administration, many officials, particularly at the State
Department, concede that the United States does not hew to one policy on
engaging its enemies. "I'd rather be right than consistent," a senior Bush
administration official said, in explaining the willingness to talk to
North
Korea, which the administration accused just last month of trying to help
Syria build a nuclear reactor. He said the United States wanted to make
sure
that talks were "purposeful engagement, not witless engagement."
To that end, the administration has tried to be sure preconditions are
met;
for instance, it repeatedly says that it restored diplomatic relations
with
Libya only after Libya renounced terrorism in 2003. But Bush
administration
officials were in talks with Libya before that happened, and many credit
the
negotiations with leading to Libya's change in behavior.
As for Hamas and Hezbollah, which have both refused to acknowledge
Israel's
right to exist or to forswear violence, the administration official said
that a criterion for talks with the United States would be that "they'd
have
to change their behavior."
But Israel is in indirect talks with Hamas, with Egypt serving as the
go-between, over a cease-fire in Gaza. Under the proposal that the two
sides
are considering, Israel would end its blockade of Gaza in exchange for a
Hamas agreement to stop the rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, among other
things.
Sometimes expediency makes former enemies tem****ary allies. In Iraq, which
the administration has frequently called the front line in the fight
against
terrorism, former insurgents are now on the American payroll as members of
citizen patrols in what is called the Sunni Awakening movement, and they
have contributed to an overall decline in violence.
And on Wednesday, the Bush administration was singing the praises of an
Arab-mediated deal in Lebanon which would, in essence, give Hezbollah veto
power over the Lebanese cabinet.
While the United States will continue its policy of not holding direct
talks
with Hezbollah, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the agreement
"a
positive step" and was even on the phone over the past few weeks with
Egyptian and Saudi officials to help find a resolution to the Lebanese
stalemate, administration officials said.
"Bush's rhetoric is completely disconnected from everything on the
ground,"
said Martin Indyk, head of the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for
Middle East Policy. "While he's giving his speech against appeasement last
week, Hezbollah was taking over control of the Lebanese government."
The events in Lebanon, Mr. Indyk said, show that the administration ought
to
put more pragmatic considerations ahead of principle.
The Israel-Syria announcement, in particular, offers an interesting case
study, because Israeli officials have said for months that the United
States
was the only obstacle blocking talks with Syria, which both Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak advocated.
In particular, Elliott Abrams, Mr. Bush's deputy national security
adviser,
has cautioned against an Israeli-Syria negotiation, according to Israeli
and
Bush administration officials. Administration officials said they feared
that such a negotiation would appear to reward Syria at a time when the
United States was seeking to isolate it for its meddling in Lebanon and
its
backing of Hezbollah.
But a few weeks ago, Israeli officials told their counterparts at the
State
Department that they planned to begin the negotiations, which are being
mediated by Turkey.
"They weren't asking our permission," one senior administration official
said. Another Bush official characterized the Israeli announcement as "a
slap in the face." But he said that United States officials believed that
Mr. Olmert made the decision with his own domestic political
considerations
in mind: He is facing several criminal investigations involving events
before he became prime minister in 2006, but while he was serving in
government. He has denied wrongdoing, and other experts said that Israel
had
its own compelling reasons to engage Syria: to blunt Hezbollah's growing
power in the region.
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