Bush Admin Paralyzed by Indecision on Palestine

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

NYT News Service via Times of India - May 27, 2002
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=11106481

Debate on Arafat stalls US policy

WASHINGTON, May 27 (NYT News Service)--An intense debate among
President Bush and his top advisers over whether to press for the
removal of Yasser Arafat as the leader of the Palestinian Authority
has effectively frozen the nation's West Asia policy, according to
some administration officials.

It has also prompted George J Tenet, the director of central
intelligence, to delay his mission to the region until the policy is
worked out.

For more than two weeks, Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell
have said that Tenet will go to West Asia to work to restructure
Palestinian security forces after the withdrawal of Israeli forces
from the West Bank. But no date was set, and until now, there was no
coherent explanation for the delay.

In the meantime, the White House has decided to send William Burns,
the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, to the
region. He is expected to leave early next week for Egypt, Jordan,
Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Word of the debate in the White House has reached Arafat's senior
advisers, one of whom has been in Washington for two weeks arguing
Arafat's case in the State Department and the Pentagon.

In an unusual meeting about a week ago, that adviser, Muhammad
Rashid, debated the "centrality" of Arafat's role with Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul D Wolfowitz, who has been one of the
critics of Arafat in the administration.

President Bush tried to settle the issue of Arafat's leadership in
two meetings of his principal advisers before he left for Moscow on
Wednesday, administration officials said, and Bush took part in the
second meeting.

But lengthy discussions failed to resolve the question of whether the
US is prepared to accept Arafat based on his pledge to undertake
extensive changes, intended to tighten security, end corruption and
broaden the Palestinian leadership.

At the same time, given the current political ferment in the
Palestinian territories that has given rise to strong criticism of
Arafat among Palestinians, the delay gives the administration time to
assess the political challenges that Arafat is beginning to face at
home, officials said.

"The Americans are watching the situation," said a senior Arab
foreign policy adviser whose government has been in close contact
with Powell.  "And we do not feel they are off course. The most
important thing going on right now is the dialogue among the
Palestinians themselves.

Arafat is admitting mistakes and he is reassessing how to be a better
Arafat if he wants to stay," the adviser said.

But one pro-Israeli lobbyist who has been tracking the
administration's debate said that Bush and his advisers "have got
themselves tied in a knot." Bush is described as being inclined to
work with Arafat, in collaboration with moderate Arab leaders who put
pressure on him to make changes. But Mr. Bush has repeatedly spoken
of Arafat's need to fulfil the expectations of Western and moderate
Arab leaders.

The debate in the Bush administration has divided along familiar
lines, officials said, with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and
Vice President Dick Cheney pressing for a policy that would undermine
Arafat's control over the Palestinian Authority and pave the way for
a change in leadership.

Powell and Tenet are said to argue that there is no alternative to
Arafat. They advocate keeping him under pressure to deliver on his
pledges of change. According to this view, political and economic
reconstruction of the Palestinian Authority would set the stage for
statehood and the gradual transition to broader leadership.
 
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