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April
5, 2002 10:00 a.m. |
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t
the White House Thursday, a short time after President Bush and Secretary
of State Powell announced Powell's upcoming trip to the Middle East, there
was a background briefing for reporters by a person who, under the terms
of the briefing, could be identified only as a "senior administration
official." This morning, news reports are filled with comments from
a "senior administration official" about the new level of White
House involvement in the Middle East crisis. But the "senior administration
official" is not identified.
Still, there are a number of clues to the official's identity. First of all, he appears to be really senior. "I called Prime Minister Sharon at 7:00 a.m.," the official said as he began his remarks. "In the last 30 or 40 minutes, I have spoken to Crown Prince Abdullah, to King Abdullah, to President Mubarak." The official said he tried to talk to Yasser Arafat — "I speak regularly to Chairman Arafat, and I have met with him on several occasions in the past" — but he couldn't get him on the phone. It seems safe to say that the official must be quite senior to be talking to all those heads of state.
Then there was another clue. In the briefing, the "senior administration official" said he will soon be traveling to the Middle East to try to restart the peace process. "I have not yet put in place a schedule of who I'll be seeing," the official said. "But in my conversations earlier with the Crown Prince and King Abdullah and President Mubarak, they will all be on the schedule."
Finally, there was one more hint. Saying he will work with the special U.S. envoy to the Middle East, Anthony Zinni, the "senior administration official" added, "I think I can take it to a higher level of involvement as the Secretary of State and as the president's designee."
So who is the unnamed "senior administration official"? Revealing his identity would be against the rules. But whoever he is, it is fair to say that he did not have much encouraging news to share with reporters. For example, the official was asked this question:
This is being projected by the White House as a new plan. It looks to me like the same old — not that something's wrong with the old plan — but it's 338 and 242 and land for peace. What's new about it? And, secondly, why now? Israel now is on the offensive against terrorists. There don't seem to have been — luckily — suicide bombings of any moment in the last few days, and they seem to making headway. Why jump in now and tell them to get out of there?
To which the official responded:
Well, first of all, I would say that what the president described earlier today in his speech is the vision that we had put forward previously. What he has said before... saying that the two parties have obligations, they have hard choices they have to make, and the president wanted to review that, to remind everybody of that vision, and to reinforce that vision as the way forward. You're not going to find a way forward strictly with violence or response to violence; you have to find a way forward that will involve negotiations and the political settlement under 242 and 338, land for peace. And I don't think there is anybody who would seriously suggest there is any other way to do it.
The official went on to say that last week, "We had grounds for considerable optimism. I saw a lot of pieces, we all saw a lot of pieces coming together." But then, the official said, "We had the horrible massacre on the Seder," which, combined with Israel's subsequent offensive, convinced the Bush team that "this was the time for the president to step forward and once again reinforce the vision that we have for the region, and ask both sides to take up their responsibilities...this was the time [the president believed] to make a bold statement, come forward, and then send me to the region."
The official was then asked whether the U.S. has "any commitment from Sharon, finally, to stop the settlements." The official answered that Israel supports the Mitchell process, and one of its "confidence-building" measures is a stop to settlement activity. But he added that "there is no question" that "one of the early challenges" of implementing the Mitchell process "will be for Israel to face the fact that the settlement activity has to stop." Taken together, the answer to the original question appears to be no, there is no commitment from Sharon.
Nor did the official suggest that the United States government had secured any other commitments from Israel or the Palestinian Authority that would, if not guarantee success for Secretary of State Powell's mission, at least make it likely that his trip to the Mideast would end with real results. Instead, the official said only, "I think we have reached the point where I need to also go out and follow up on the president's vision."