POLITICS-U.S.: Diplomatic Efforts Intensify

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Sep 18 2001 (IPS) - U.S. diplomatic efforts to line up support for as-yet undetermined action against alleged Islamist terrorists intensified Tuesday, even as Washington waited for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to decide the fate of Osama bin Laden.

The Saudi exile is Washington’s prime suspect in a number of incidents including the Sep. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

French President Jacques Chirac, who arrived here Tuesday, was expected to meet President George W. Bush late in the day. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, considered Washington’s closest ally, is expected to meet Bush here Thursday.

Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who has denounced last Tuesday’s devastating terror attacks, will arrive here Wednesday on a previously scheduled visit.

As the leader of a country with the world’s largest Muslim population, to which bin Laden’s al Qaeda network has extended its reach in the past two years, U.S. officials believe Sukarnoputri has a key role to play in what Bush now calls a crusade against terrorism.

Washington is dispatching diplomats to other capitals. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has begun crucial talks with senior Russian officials in Moscow over possible assistance they could provide.

Moscow has ruled out its own military intervention against the Taliban regime, which Washington accuses of sheltering bin Laden, but has expressed enthusiasm for punishing the Taliban – which it charges with supporting Islamic rebels in Chechnya.

The first tangible results of U.S. diplomatic efforts were announced Tuesday, when Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had agreed to take a number of steps to achieve a cease-fire, including a pullback of Israeli forces form hotspots in and around Palestinian territories, as a prelude to more substantive peace talks.

“This is an encouraging development,” Powell said, adding that it could lead to a “sort of separation that might encourage a state of non-violence.”

Analysts and officials have said in recent days that tamping down Israeli-Palestinian violence should make it much easier for Washington to recruit other nations for its cause, particularly Arab states in the Middle East and the Gulf.

The Bush administration’s refusal until now to apply real pressure on Sharon to resume serious negotiations with Arafat had seriously undermined Washington’s position in the Arab world, according to numerous analysts.

It also angered such steadfast U.S. allies as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, who unexpectedly declined an invitation to meet Bush earlier this summer. Abullah, who also ordered the country’s military chief to forgo his usual round of consultations with his U.S. counterparts here, reportedly intended to convey his government’s unhappiness with Washington’s alignment with Israel.

Arab anger actually increased in the week since the terrorist attacks, according to published reports, as Sharon’s government launched several raids deep into Palestinian areas, adding to the death of toll of almost 600 Palestinians in the violence of the past 12 months.

“This will have terrible repercussions,” Mubarak himself told a CNN interviewer Monday night, before Tuesday’s more promising developments. In the same interview, Mubarak noted that Bush’s perceived backing for Sharon “may be one of the elements which encouraged” last week’s terrorist attacks.

The necessity for Bush to press Sharon on a cease-fire and resumed peace talks is also likely to figure high on the agendas of visiting European leaders who have taken a much more active role in recent months in trying to mediate between the two sides.

Both Britain and France strongly backed Washington’s invoking Chapter Five of NATO’s Washington Treaty. This requires all allies to provide support to a member state attacked from abroad.

The assumption – yet to be proven – was that, while the skyjackings that preceded the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon took place in U.S. airspace, planning, support and financing took place abroad.

After the NATO meeting, however, several leaders stressed that Washington did not have a “blank cheque” to respond to the attacks in any way it wished and retain the allies’ support.

Europeans reportedly are skeptical about the accuracy of U.S. intelligence on bin Laden and his alleged influence and infrastructure, and they are anxious that U.S. military strikes not be indiscriminate or conducted in a way that incites most of the Islamic world against the West.

“They have a lot more invested in that part of the world, they’re a lot closer, and they have many more Muslims living there than we do,” noted one Congressional aide. “To the extent they are seen as helping the U.S., they have a lot at stake which they want us to take account of.”

Washington is finding that no country’s support for U.S. retaliation and its war against terrorism will be completely unconditional and, in some cases, the conditions will be expensive.

Pakistan, for example, clearly expects Washington to lift tough economic sanctions and a long-standing ban on aid – not to mention more pressure on India to negotiate over Kashmir – in exchange for its sharing intelligence and providing airfields for U.S. use in military strikes.

Russia, which has already warned its Central Asian neighbours against providing bases for U.S. military forces, has a number of items which it would like to see addressed by Washington, not least NATO expansion and stalling, if not canceling, U.S. plans to build an anti-missile defence system.