MIDEAST: Iran Looms Large in Bush's 11th Hour Tour

WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (IPS) - In the opening days of his trip to the Middle East, U.S. President George W. Bush visited Israel and the Palestinian territories for the first time to spearhead the U.S. role as mediator of the latest push for Middle East peace inaugurated just over a month ago in Annapolis, Maryland.

But upon arrival Bush played down his own bold goals for the creation of a Palestinian state amid tough talk from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and in-depth public negotiations about the implementation of the roadmap - a U.S.-endorsed series of goals to be met on both sides of the conflict.

"Gaza is a tough situation," said Bush at a press availability with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, referring to the armed takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas militants last summer, effectively splitting the governance of the territories.

"I don't know if you can solve it in a year, or not," Bush said, exposing one of the obstacles to his previously stated goal of creating a Palestinian state by the end of his presidency.

"The Gaza challenge is the major challenge and it's the main policy that America is still getting stubbornly wrong," said former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy. "But it's not an obstacle to theoretically getting a deal on paper. But Gaza will stop implementation [of that agreement]."

The U.S. policy has been to essentially ignore Hamas, which swept the Palestinian Authority's 2006 legislative elections before using violence to claim Gaza when power-sharing talks with Abbas' Fatah faction failed.

But Levy says, "The American pressure is too monogamous with the Abbas side," and the isolation of Hamas is unsustainable because the Palestinians will be kept in a weak negotiating position as long as the Palestinian land and power structure is divided.

"There will be no peace unless terror is stopped, and terror will have to be stopped everywhere," said Olmert at his availability with Bush. "We made it clear to the Palestinians; they know it, and they understand that Gaza must be a part of the package, and that as long as there will be terror from Gaza it will be very, very hard to reach any peaceful understanding between us and the Palestinians."

A guarantee of security for Israel is part of the first phase of the roadmap, but difficult for Abbas to deliver because of the division of the territories.

Conversely, Israel has also balked at some of its phase one obligations, including halting settlement activities in East Jerusalem - occupied by Israel in 1967 and envisioned by many as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

"They know," said Olmert, "that there is a moratorium on new settlements and the new expropriation of land in the territories. And they also know, and we have made it clear that Jerusalem, as far as we are concerned, is not in the same status."

But the new U.S. push no longer reflects this hard-line position on one of the more contentious "final status" issues of the creation of a Palestinian state.

Asked about the West Bank versus East Jerusalem settlements before traveling with Bush to the Mideast, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, "The United States doesn't make a distinction. The roadmap obligations are on settlement activity generally."

Another important step in the U.S.'s role as an honest broker in the peace process was Bush's call Thursday morning call to end "the occupation that began in 1967".

While not explicit, the mention of the year 1967 reflects an acknowledgement of the borders before Israel seized territory in the Six-Day War - a key demand of Palestinians backed by the Arab Peace Initiative.

Bush's increasingly strong language towards the Arab Initiative - reaffirmed unanimously by the Arab League last Spring at the Riyadh Summit - is interpreted by some as a continued attempt by him to use the Arab-Israeli process to build a coalition with Arab states that can be used against Iran.

Bush spoke at length about Iran in his availability in Jerusalem on Wednesday, calling it a "threat to world peace" three times in his opening remarks and saying that he had discussed the topic with Olmert.

While the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran has drastically changed the dialogue about Iran policy in the U.S., Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak issued a de facto denial of the report immediately after its release in December.

But Levy said that the Arab countries seem to be playing it both ways, in both the peace process and with regards to Iran.

"The Arab gulf is concerned about Iran. But I think it's not going to throw its lot in exclusively with the Bush administration," said Levy.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the Gulf Cooperation Council at its annual summit last month in Qatar - a first for an Iranian leader - and the Arab states are also engaging Hamas by establishing relations with Gaza.

During the rest of Bush's tour of the Mideast, he will visit and have high-level meetings in Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

"I don't expect much from Bush's trip," wrote George Washington University political science professor Marc Lynch in his blog. "The time to tour the region getting to know the issues, the countries, and the people was - oh, I don't know, seven years ago. But maybe he will get some nice travel photos, at least."

(END/2008)

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