WHEN I FIRST HEARD THE NEWS OF THE MIDDLE EAST breakthrough last Sunday night, I was excited. Then the weight short. This is the Middle East, move is an agonizing process. I acts of President Bush, to meet separately with each delegation to the Middle East peace talks as a simple courtesy farewell. Arranging this “simple” event turned into a nightmare of preparations, consuming days, before the exquisite sensitivities of each side about the most minute details were satisfied. In the end, we had to hold two more meetings than there were delegations.
I had always known that real progress in the Middle East usually follows some event-usually, a war-that shakes things up, that breaks the rigidities. It was the October War of 1973 that led to Sadat’s historic trip to Jerusalem and to Camp David. This time, it took two wars to break the ice-the end of the cold war and beginning of the Gulf War. The surprising announcement last week did not spring full blown from the secret negotiations in Norway. It is the result of historic forces coming together against the backdrop of years of American effort to move along the process.
I remember realizing how much things had changed when the Soviet Union condemned Iraq for invading Kuwait in August 1990. All during the cold war, the Soviets had tried to play off the Arabs against the United States. Now they were joining our coalition. It was obvious to President Bush and to me that more could flow from Operation Desert Storm than the liberation of Kuwait. Certainly, not to act would have been a catastrophe–Saddam’s power grab would have been seen as a triumph of radicalism, dooming any chance for peace talks. We were careful not to say much about our hopes for Arab-Israeli peace while we geared up for Operation Desert Storm; we did not want Saddam to exploit the situation. But once the war was over, we saw a real opportunity to restart a process that was virtually dead.
We knew Arafat had blundered badly by backing Saddam. Now he was out of a sponsor and out of money. The Syrians could no longer rely on the Soviet Union for arms and support. The region’s radicals lost clout. The Saudis felt close to us for defending their country. Other moderate Arab states were impressed when Washington got tough with Saddam but at the same time respected Arab sensitivities in prosecuting the war. They were ready to throw their weight behind a peace initiative. The moment was ripe-if only the Israelis would come around.
Our relations with Israel had been very difficult. Shamir was very tough. But there had been a little bonding between Bush and the Israeli prime minister during the Gulf War. Those Scud attacks made the Israelis feel vulnerable. We just needed something to kick-start the peace process.
The first breakthrough was to get the Arabs and Israelis to sit down together in Madrid in October of ‘91. It required a great deal of hard work-eight trips by Jim Baker to the region-and guts, as shown by our refusal to provide unconditional loan guarantees to an Israeli government more interested in building settlements on the West Bank than in a political settlement.
In Madrid, I was struck by the difference between President Bush’s speech and the one given by Mikhail Gorbachev. The Kremlin leader’s speech was more of a ramble than a speech, more about his own problems at home than the Middle East. That brought home the fact that we were the last superpower, and the only hope for providing some kind of structure for peace talks.
Usually at an international parley, the diplomats casually chat beforehand. In Madrid, the Israelis and the Arabs just sat at their places, staring straight ahead. It was eerie, and not a good sign. We had broken an important psychological barrier just getting them in the same room to talk peace. But I left the conference relieved that we had simply made it through without a diplomatic blowup. After this wobbly start, the five direct negotiations that followed went nowhere. We were discouraged. The Israelis’ interest in the peace talks was, to put it politely, extremely finite. The Syrians were starting to have second thoughts about their involvement, and to say the rest of the participants were reluctant is an understatement.
But then in June of 1992 came a real turning point. Yitzhak Rabin replaced Shamir in Israel. We had bent over backward to stay neutral in the election, but we were relieved by the outcome. At last, I told the president, we have an Israeli leader who views peace as an opportunity, not a danger. Rabin came to Kennebunkport that August to work out a loan-guarantee agreement with the United States. He was tough and meticulous, but we felt some real hope.
The events this week promise to fulfill that hope. But I am mindful that the United States can only help start the peace process and support its outcome. We can prod and cajole and help make the atmosphere right for a peace treaty. But ultimately the parties have to sit down and negotiate-as the Israelis and PLO finally began doing with the back-channel talks in Oslo. The real work must be done by the Arabs and Israelis themselves, and they have a long and terrible history to overcome.
