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NewsvineIn the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attempted this week to revitalize the peace process in Israel-Palestine, but, thus far, her efforts have shown no concrete progress. While some have criticized Rice for what they view as a futile endeavor, others praise her initiative for bringing the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to the same table as the Hamas-Fatah coalition that now leads the Palestinian Authority. The meeting was made possible by a deal brokered in Mecca by the rulers of Saudi Arabia, bringing to an end a bitter rift between Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah Party, which seeks engagement with Israel, and Hamas, the hard-line anti-Israel winner of last year’s legislative elections.
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The talks are taking place in the context of the strengthening of an alliance between Israel and the United States, and the Sunni Arab states of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The cause for this partnership is mutual concern over the expansion of Iran, which the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inculpated on Thursday for continuing to enrich uranium, possibly for use in nuclear weapons. Iran responded promptly to the IAEA’s report by announcing its intention to build an additional 3,000 centrifuges — the key component in uranium enrichment — by May of this year. Iran, a Shi’ite state established by the Islamic cleric, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, has been accused recently by President George W. Bush of providing materiel to Iraqi militias responsible for the deaths of U.S. servicemen and women.
The U.S., which has no official diplomatic relations with Iran, has hardened its opposition to the Islamic Republic since last summer’s conflict between the Israeli Defense Force and the Lebanese Shi’ite militia Hizbullah. Hizbullah has a strong base of support in southern Lebanon and other pockets of the country. Links between Tehran and Hizbullah’s leader, Hassan Nasrullah, remain strong, although many now see Syria as an increasingly important force in controlling the organization.
The hard line that the Bush administration holds against Iran and Syria came across during Secretary Rice’s trip to the region this week. While meeting with members of the Olmert cabinet, Dr. Rice asked the Israeli government to desist from participating in “exploratory talks” with the regime of Bashar al-Assad in the neighboring state of Syria. The predominantly Sunni Arab state, which has been under the control of the dictatorship of the Shi’ite Assad family for decades, has hinted it may be willing to hold peace talks with the state of Israel. Due to a controversy regarding the ownership of the region known as the Golan Heights, which Syria lost to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, along with other hostilities stemming from before that conflict, the two states have not shared a peace agreement in decades. Critics of the current U.S. policy believe that it will be easier to contain Iran once Syria is separated from it and that Syria naturally belongs in a block with the Sunni Arab states.
While the United States is having success in finding common ground with the Sunni governments, an impasse is beginning to develop between the U.S. and Europe on the question of aid for Palestine. The question is whether or not the Palestinian unity government should be eligible for foreign aid. Last year, Western powers withdrew funds from the Hamas-led government until its leaders publicly renounced violence and acknowledged the state of Israel’s right to exist. While the United States still upholds these demands, European officials are discussing the possibility of sending humanitarian aid to Palestine irrespective of whether the Authority meets these conditions or not. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, explicitly stated that it was not necessary for the Palestinian government to meet these conditions in order for aid to be sent. As with the dispute over Iranian nuclear development, Russian noncompliance with U.S. policy goals represents a major obstacle. In addition to serving as a member of the Middle Eastern “quartet” — the historic team of peacemakers that has the UN, the U.S. and the European Union as its other members — there are considerable cultural ties between Russia and Israel, which has a large Russian-born population.
In Iraq this week, plans were announced to begin drawdowns of Danish and British troops starting in the spring. The British military, a 7,000-strong force, has had its command in the southern part of the country, including the strategic port city of Basra, since 2003. In the intervening years, Operation Sinbad — the British military’s code name for the campaign — has claimed the lives of more than 130 British soldiers. The announcement, made by Prime Minister Tony Blair on Wednesday, comes as President Bush defends his decision to send an additional 20,000 U.S. troops into Iraq. Although Mr. Blair indicated that British troops would remain in some capacity in Iraq beyond 2008, observers in Washington say that supporters of the war in the Republican Party and the Bush administration are taking the news grimly. In an interview with the BBC’s John Humphrys, Mr. Blair rejected blame for the violence plaguing Iraq, saying, “the responsibility exists with the people doing the violence.” In a related story, Prince Harry, the third in the line to the British throne and a graduate of the prestigious Sandhurst Military Academy, is scheduled to serve in Iraq for a period of six months, beginning with the next troop rotation.
Credit: The New York Times, Le Monde, Haaretz, The International Herald Tribune, The Times of London, Deutsche Welle, BBC News
The author regrets having written in this article's original form that Hizbullah "was created by the Iranian regime in the 1980s as an agent for the exportation of the Islamic revolution." This statement misrepresented Hizbullah's origins and its original goals.