The view from London

By Michael Barone

LONDON–It is interesting to view the reaction to President Bush's speech from London, where opinion on the Middle East is very different from what it is in the United States. American opinion is firmly on the side of Israel, which we see as a democracy under attack from terrorists. British opinion is much more sympathetic to the Palestinians, who are seen as an unfairly occupied people oppressed by a brutal Israeli regime. That is the view expressed by, among others, Cherie Booth, Prime Minister Tony Blair's wife, in a joint appearance with Queen Rania of Jordan last week. Many members of the parliamentary Labor Party are aggressively on the side of the Palestinians, and in the ranks of the minority Conservative Party some Arabists can be found.

And yet the reaction to Bush's speech has been mostly, though in some cases grudgingly, positive. In debate in the House of Commons on June 25, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called Bush's speech "very welcome and very positive," said "we strongly support the call for reforms to the Palestinian Authority and for new elections," hailed Bush's "clear commitment to a settlement based on United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338," and acknowledged that "there have been many disappointments with the Palestinian Authority ... and those disappointments are shared by this government."

Some of these statements came in response to hostile questions from Labor MPs. After Straw spoke, Tony Blair's spokesman put out the information that he had one difference with Bush's approach–he was not backing any call to remove Yasser Arafat (who was not mentioned by name in Bush's speech). Speaking from his plane as he flew to the G8 conference in Kananaskis, Canada, Blair said, "It is for the Palestinians to elect their own leaders." But of course Bush had called for a fair election of a Palestinian leader, and the 1996 Palestinian election on which some MPs set so much store was pretty much a sham.

The fact is that the Blair government has accepted what amounts to a radical shift from previous United States approaches to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. The Conservative opposition, which solidly supports Bush's position, chose not to bring up the headlined split between Blair and Bush in Question Time on June 26 because they do not think it amounts to much–a position also taken by a source close to Blair. The Middle East is one more example of how this determined American president has, by boldly asserting a new policy, carried allies along with them on a course they would not have chosen on their own.

For the Bush speech was indeed a bold shift from previous American policy. In past Israeli/Palestinian negotiations, American presidents have concentrated on getting Israel to make concessions. They have generally accepted that Palestinian and other Arab leaders cannot be expected to make much in the way of concessions–because they live in fear of Arab radicals and because we must help them stay in power to keep worse dictators from replacing them.

Bush has taken a different approach in his June 24 speech and in his occasionally wobbly course on the Israeli/Palestinian issue since he took office. He has insisted pretty consistently that the Palestinians must act first. They must stop acts of terrorism, he has often said, and they must move toward democratic government and the rule of law, he said June 24, before he will call on the Israelis to do things in return. Who must act first is critical. Insisting that both parties act simultaneously means, in effect, more pressure on Israel than on the Palestinians. Insisting that the Palestinians move first means much more pressure on the Palestinians than Israel.

Insisting that the Palestinians act first also means that the time line for a final settlement moves far into the future. Jack Straw hailed Bush's speech for promising that a settlement could occur within three years, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has reportedly briefed reporters that it could occur in 18 months. But it could also take a lot longer than that. For neither Arafat nor most other Palestinians seem inclined to do what Bush insisted they do anytime soon.

There is good reason to believe that many of the Arab states–Saudi Arabia especially–which have been urging more U.S. involvement in the Israel/Palestine issue did so to delay, they hope indefinitely, American-led action against Iraq. By answering their demand for American involvement by saying that the United States will get involved, but only after the Palestinians act first, and by pitching the attention forward three years, Bush has, in effect, notified them that we will not delay action against Iraq until we solve a problem that no one has been able to solve for 54 years.

The assumption among sophisticated British observers of both parties is that Bush will move against Iraq well before November 2004 and that Britain, among other European countries, will support the United States in that action. And the leaders of both parties have pledged support to a U.S. policy that kicks final action on the Israeli/Palestinian issue till 2005 or later.

One can look at Bush's policy as either naďve or Machiavellian. Naďve, if one focuses on his demand for democracy and rule of law for the Palestinians. Arabists, who are thick on the ground in the British Foreign Office as they are in the U.S. State Department, have long told us the Arabs have their own traditions and forms of government and we cannot realistically expect to change them. We should simply try to cooperate with despotic Arab leaders for fear they are replaced by something worse: stability is important above all else. Bush plainly takes a different view. He calls for the Palestinians to have political democracy and human rights, which are enjoyed by no Arabs in the Middle East except those who are citizens of Israel. He does not want stability in the Middle East. He wants change. The September 11 attackers came out of the stable Middle East. We want a different Middle East, where government-sanctioned hate propaganda and government-tolerated subsidies to terrorism no longer threaten our civilization.

From this naiveté comes the Machiavellianism of using the calls for American involvement to base American involvement on a transformation of the Palestinian polity–a transformation that threatens to destabilize other Arab despots. In this, Bush is similar to that other American president who transformed U.S. policy on the Israeli/Palestinian issue seemingly out of naiveté. Jimmy Carter was naive enough to believe that if he invited Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin to negotiate at Camp David indefinitely, he could get them to hammer out an Israel-Egypt peace. Carter used the quality that was his great strength (and on some issues his great weakness)–a persistent concentration on detail–to get such an agreement. Similarly, George W. Bush is naive enough to believe that no Israeli/Palestinian peace can be negotiated with a leader who consistently lies. He reportedly was greatly affronted that Arafat lied about the Karine A., the ship that was stopped from conveying arms from Iran to the Palestinians. Bill Clinton was never troubled when someone lied to him; it was behavior he understood and felt he could deal with. Bush was troubled and transformed U.S. policy in response.

In the past six months, George W. Bush has transformed American foreign policy as no other president has since Harry Truman in the first six months of 1947. On January 29, Bush, in effect, declared war on the "axis of evil" and outlined his seven "non-negotiable demands of human dignity." On June 1, he announced that the United States would act "pre-emptive[ly]" against terrorism regimes. On June 24, he insisted that democracy and the rule of law–in effect, his same seven demands–will be the lodestone of U.S. policy in the Middle East.

A year ago no one would have predicted these changes. Tony Blair, sympathetic though he is to the United States generally and to Bush personally, would surely have been astonished and appalled. British Conservatives, even more inclined to support Bush, might have had their qualms. But September 11 changed everyone's thinking, and George W. Bush has adjusted American foreign policy to the dangers that September 11 revealed. Britain, despite the opposition of Labor backbenchers and much left-wing articulate opinion, is going along. Knowledgeable Britons of both parties expect that much of Europe-the governments of Italy, Spain, Germany–will too. Osama bin Laden thought he could change the world his way. George W. Bush believes he can change the world our way and seems to be in the process of doing so. It is an interesting spectacle to watch five time zones away.