Since September 11, there has been increased concern about terrorists using weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It is thus natural to return to the issue of Iraq, a country that has used chemical agents against Iran and its own citizens. Indeed, Iraq violated the Non-Proliferation Treaty before 1990 and, prior to the Gulf War, was estimated to be a year away from developing workable nuclear weapons.
Revelations of Iranian-Palestinian collusion to smuggle fifty tons of weapons into the hands of Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) through the offices of Hizballah have profound strategic implications for the Middle East. For the Bush administration, responding appropriately to the Karine-A episode may have unpleasant repercussions for relations with key Arab states. However, failing to deal forthrightly with the shift in the region's tectonic plates represented by the smuggling affair is a self-defeating exercise in delusion.
Visits by Turkish prime ministers to Washington have tended in years past to be low-profile events. With imagination and boldness on the American side, the January 16 meeting between President George W. Bush and Turkish prime minister Bulent Ecevit has the potential to be a watershed in a relationship that will affect vital U.S. interests well into the new century.
In a brief January 3 statement, the White House announced that Egypt is receiving $959 million in accelerated economic aid, the bulk of which was evidently disbursed in the closing days of 2001. While an important sign of continued U.S. support for the Hosni Mubarak government, this sudden and massive windfall has the potential for weakening U.S. leverage in convincing Egypt to pursue additional (and much needed) economic reforms. Additionally, it is certain to be viewed in Cairo as a signal that the United States is fully satisfied with Egypt's post-September 11 contribution to the war against terrorism.
On December 20, 2002, the Quartet convened at the White House to discuss the Middle East when President George W. Bush met with UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov, and three ministerial representatives of the European Union (Stig Moeller, Javier Solana, and Chris Patten). The purpose of this meeting was to secure the president's blessing for the Quartet's "roadmap" to Israeli-Palestinian peace, developed in order to fulfill the vision laid out in Bush's June 24, 2002, speech on the Middle East.
On November 26, 2002, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. General Amidror has served thirty-six years in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), as head of the National Defense College, head of the research and assessment division of military intelligence, and military secretary to the minister of defense. Currently, he is a visiting military scholar at the Institute. The following is a rapporteur's summary of his remarks.
Last Friday, while official Washington was still enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday break, the White House stealthily issued Presidential Determination 2003-04, whose first paragraph instructs the State Department to sanction the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) for noncompliance with obligations stemming from the Oslo Accords. This was ostensibly in response to evidence of official PA complicity in acts of violence and terrorism that had become too compelling to ignore. Yet, the very next paragraph orders that the specific sanction applied — downgrading the status of the PLO office in Washington — be waived, citing U.S. national security interests. The end result of this diplomatic two-step is a change in declarative U.S. policy (i.e., for the first time, a formal statement of PA noncompliance), but no change in effective policy.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution
Political Geography:
United States, Washington, Middle East, and Arab Countries
On Thursday, an estimated 300,000 members of Israel's Likud Party will head to the polls and decide whether they want Prime Minister Ariel Sharon or Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as their party leader. This contest has special importance because current polls show that the Likud winner is likely to emerge victorious in the January 28, 2003, national elections as well. According to a November 22 Yediot Ahronot poll, Likud is outpacing Labor by a sizable 38- to 21-seat projected margin in the 120-seat Knesset.
Tomorrow, approximately 100,000 members of the Israeli Labor Party will vote for their new leader. The winner will serve as the party's standard-bearer for the national elections on January 28, 2003. Barring an unforeseen turnaround, the winner of tomorrow's contest will be Haifa mayor Amram Mitzna. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer — Mitzna's main rival and, until his recent resignation from the Sharon government, Israel's defense minister — is reduced to hoping that he can deprive Mitzna of the required 40 percent needed in a three-person race and force a December 3 runoff. Even under that scenario, however, Mitzna is expected to win. His popularity has grown over the past week as key supporters of the race's third candidate, veteran politico Haim Ramon, have defected to his side in the hopes of blocking Ben-Eliezer's reelection. Polls of Labor members currently show Mitzna ahead of Ben-Eliezer by a 43 percent to 26 percent margin, with Ramon trailing both at 12 percent.
Israel is reconfiguring its government and the Palestinian Authority (PA) has established a new cabinet this week. The Israeli-Palestinian violence of the last two years is unlikely to be transformed into a peace process as a result of this week's developments. This is due to a variety of factors ranging from the fact that PA chairman Yasir Arafat beat back efforts by reformers made over the summer and pointedly dropped his security chief who professed a commitment to reform. On the Israeli track, the new Israeli government's room to maneuver will be constrained by the lack of change on the Palestinian side, as well as a set of domestic and foreign considerations.