US and Iranian Critics of Annapolis almost sound the same.
The American Left and our terrorist enemies are setting themselves up for a big “I told you so” regarding the Annapolis Middle East Conference that officially starts tomorrow. (Unofficially, it has already begun. EuroNews article and video; AFP, “Rice in diplomatic flurry ahead of Mideast peace talks”)
In contrast to Secretary of State Rice’s “failure is not an option” statement regarding the objectives of the conference, expectations for success have been, generally, characterized as modest or even low. (Baltimore Sun, “Failure is not an option.” by David Wood) True, how much can be accomplished in a single day? But as has been widely reported, the conference has been “front loaded” with “pre-negotiations” including visits by Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas to the White House.
Just the fact that the Saudis and the Syrians are going to be present is an accomplishment in itself and may lower the threshold to their participation in the future.
Ninety percent of success is just showing up.
Woody Allen
Of course, the Syrians and the Saudis have both downplayed their participation and the chances for success in their domestic (state controlled) media outlets — not wanting to appear overly friendly with Washington or Israel. In reality, both of these Arab states see the conference as a forum for their respective positions on their own “pet” issues, especially the Golan Heights for Syria, and if they score a few diplomatic points with Washington in order to hedge their bets against a future nuclear-armed Iran, so much the better. (Alsumaria, “Assad and Ahmadinejad: Annapolis Conference to Fail”)
What is a more disturbing than the expected negativity from Iran’s Ayatollahs is reading about the politically motivated opinions of “experts” in the US media, such as the Sun article, where reporter David Wood quotes the “heavyweights” Lee Hamilton (of the quickly forgotten Iraq Surrender Study Group) and Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was White House national security adviser under President Jimmy Carter. (Now there’s an entry on your resume that you’d like to forget! Instead of “heavyweights,” shouldn’t he have written ”has beens?”) It seems that these guys are on almost the same page as Ahmadinejad and Iran’s ruling Ayatollahs when it comes to prospects for Annapolis!
Hamilton, along with Brzezinski and six other foreign policy heavyweights, wrote to Bush and Rice last month warning that failure at Annapolis “risks devastating consequences” in the Middle East because it would undercut moderates. (Blog Editor: Kinda like in 2000, when President Clinton’s Camp David get together failed, right?)
Robert Little, also of the Baltimore Sun, quotes Aaron David Miller, a Woodrow Wilson Center Public Policy Scholar who doesn’t mind criticizing his own board members (Condi currently sits on the Wilson Center’s Board of Trustees) in his November 25, 2007, ominously titled article, “Rice’s legacy on the line at Annapolis conference.”
“She’s about a year or so away from being judged as a kind of inconsequential secretary of state,” said Aaron David Miller
That takes chutzpah from a guy who proudly lists himself on his Wilson Center bio as a ”Former Advisor to six Secretaries of State on Arab-Israeli Negotiations, 1978-2003….Expertise (in) U.S.-Middle East relations; Arab-Israeli negotiations; Arab world and Palestinian politics; Israeli politics” (Notice that does NOT include Dr. Rice’s tenure as Secretary of State) Let’s see, how many “comprehensive” Arab-Israeli peace accords were concluded during that period? ZERO. Maybe without his advice, Condi will do better than her predecessors. She certainly would be in a better position with some bipartisan support, but no such luck. Also, Mr. Little neglected to mention in his article that Miller has a book coming out next year, America and the Much Too Promised Land: The Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace. It would be disastrous for his book sales if peace just started breaking out all over the Middle East. Further evidence that his opinions, to which he is fully entitled to have and communicate, may be weighted down with ideological baggage was a June 19, 2007, Washington Post op-ed that he co-authored with Robert Malley: “West Bank First: It won’t work.” (Blog Editor: We don’t mean to imply that Dr. Miller’s writings are economically influenced, but we do find these facts about his point-of-view interesting and wish that they would have been mentioned in the Sun article. Some aspects of his work are quite beneficial to the cause of peace, such as his work with Seeds of Peace.)
Achieving any progress towards Middle East peace in one day is difficult enough no matter how much diplomatic preparation has been undertaken. Partisan reporting and criticism only make peace that much more “elusive” (to use Miller’s book title), but that’s exactly the point. The undermining of peace efforts in order to gain political or personal advantage for 2008, and beyond, is just another obstacle that our Secretary of State, unfortunately, must overcome.