For Middle East Peace With Justice Advocates, Best Presidential Picks Still Bradley and Bush

By Richard H. Curtiss

Before our next issue is printed, a great many of our readers will have voted in primary elections in their states, and probably both the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees will be clear, leaving whatever convention fireworks may remain up to the Reform Party.

In the two previous issues we’ve said that Democrats for whom peace with justice in the Middle East is a central issue would probably feel more comfortable with Sen. Bill Bradley than with Vice President Al Gore, and that Republicans of the same persuasion would probably feel more comfortable with Gov. George W. Bush than with Sen. John McCain. We’ve seen nothing in the meantime to change that belief and, in the case of the Republicans, evidence that Bush is a considerably better pick than McCain.

The Jerusalem Pander

On p. 88 of this issue, covering a press conference by Arab American Institute President James Zogby, he goes into individual candidate stands on moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. We won’t duplicate that information in this article but will summarize it. Gore and Bush have taken more positive stands than have the others.

With Gore it’s inevitable. Since he’s an incumbent vice president he can hardly volunteer that he plans to undercut the peace process by moving the U.S. Embassy before the status of Jerusalem is decided in final status negotiations. But, nevertheless, the fact that he has acted responsibly, for whatever reason, and Bradley, his opponent, has pandered to the Israel lobby on this particular issue deserves note. Unfortunately, however, Gore’s past, almost slavish devotion to the Israel lobby doesn’t augur well for how he would approach the problem of peace in the Middle East.

In the case of the Republicans, only Bush seemed reluctant to pander—so much so that after he had twice said rushing to move the embassy could “screw up the peace process” his staff issued a statement saying that he really meant to say that he would move the embassy. So all the Republicans are guilty of the big pander on Jerusalem, but Bush notably less so than the others.

Bush and “the Vulcans”

We’ve mentioned also the formidible list of self-appointed advisers to Bush who include not only some of the toughest Reagan cold warriors, but also Richard Perle, one of the worst Zionist hard-liners within the Reagan administration. His life-long devotion to Israel, his appointments when he was a Pentagon assistant secretary, including a deputy who had already been investigated by the FBI on charges of transferring military secrets to Israel, and the control Perle exercised within the Defense Department on all U.S. weapons sales and technology transfers around the world, were considered extremely alarming by many, including this writer. Then, for reasons never disclosed, Perle abruptly left the Defense Department. That’s what made the reappearance in the George W. Bush ranks of Perle, who had spent the intervening years lobbying for foreign governments, including Turkey, so off-putting.

Happily, the subject was raised in a Bush press conference. A journalist asked about rumors that a group known by other Bush workers as “the Vulcans” already had dibs on the top Bush administration foreign and defense policy jobs, and that they already are promising subordinate positions in a Bush administration to their friends. Now “the Vulcans” already have been described in the newspapers, and those named include all of the Cold War and Zionist hard-liners who worry this writer, but also others like top Bush national security adviser Condaleza Rice, who is reputed to be neither a cold warrior nor a Zionist, but as a person Bush really trusts and depends upon.

Bush looked the reporter in the eye and sakid he had never heard of “the Vulcans,” didn’t know who they were supposed to be, and that he had promised no Bush administration jobs. If he really hasn’t heard about “the Vulcans” he needs to get out more and fire whoever hides his newspapers from him. But on the advance promises, he certainly sounded credible. Usually when rumors start as to who is going to be the secretary or undersecretary of state or defense, it’s the person named who started the rumor. Let’s hope that George W. soon realizes that the best thing he can do with most of “the Vulcans” is to tell them to go where the temperature is warm enough to bend iron.

McCain Sounds Scary

The writer must admit that he started the campaign with a deep personal admiration for Sen. John McCain, both on the obvious heroism issue and on campaign finance reform. But initial reservations about McCain’s Middle East policy have grown into real fear. Here is a man who is not just pandering, but who seems really to believe some of the Middle East verbiage his congressional staff or AIPAC is preparing for him, or he’s just making it up as he goes along. Read what follows and be warned:

“For too long, the nation of Israel has bargained in good faith, but received little in return. As president, I would make sure that all of the peace partners live up to their prior commitments before any more land transfers take place…As president I will never ask them [the Israelis] to sacrifice tangible land in exchange for intangible promises…

“As president I will tend with care to our ‘special relationship’ with our best friend and only true democracy in the Middle East. That means I will speak out forcefully and immediately when blood libels are spread about Israel by those with whom we expect Israel to make peace.

“Our credibility, our principles, the value of friendship with the United States, and the understanding of all nations in the region that America stands for something greater than its self-interest should be the primary objects of our Middle East policy.”

To this writer, that sounds, if not like the ranting of a madman, at least of someone who deeply and fundamentally misunderstands the entire Middle East problem. Clearly McCain hasn’t noticed that it is Israel that has not lived up to its commitments, and that true American “self-interest” in the Middle East is peace with justice that will create political and economic stability, ensure respect for human rights, and save lives there. If he thinks there’s something that transcends that, he may be as nutty as Pat Robertson. If McCain were elected president, our kids might soon be fighting Israel’s unjust wars, and Americans would be at risk both at home and abroad.

Even Bradley’s Pandering is Moderate

Meanwhile, since in the last issue we compared Sen. Bill Bradley’s Middle East voting record with McCain’s, justice requires us to repair inadvertent damage to Bradley. Most Democratic candidates are dependent to some extent on pro-Zionist donors and media support. But Bradley nevertheless manages to sound much more nuanced, even when he’s pandering. Here are examples:

“I think that, in general, there are very positive developments in Israel…I think the Barak government has a very clear idea of what it means as a negotiating strategy. I think the United States should not jump into the middle of that, that it should be a negotiation of the confrontational states, and ultimately they have to make an agreement that they can live with. And that negotiation itself would produce a positive result. And with the result achieved, it would be lasting because each state would have to come to terms with the security that they felt they needed…

“I do not think the United States should prejudge this. On this particular issue [whether the U.S. should supply Israel with advanced fighter jets] I would be predisposed to allow the Israelis to use the equipment that you referred to, but I would of course want to hear the full argument as to why somebody thought they shouldn’t.”

And consider Bradley’s feelings on foreign policy in general: “Once in America there was consensus…about foreign policy…There was an old saying that political division stopped at the water’s edge. Sadly, that consensus has vanished. Foreign policy has become more of a political football, or is made through polling or focus groups to score domestic political points. I deplore that, and one of the things I will try to restore if I become president is a bipartisan foreign policy consensus. That’s in all of our interests.”

So clearly both Bush and Bradley have some concept of what the Middle East problem is all about. Meanwhile, since Bush would be much better off without some of his Vulcans, perhaps he can send a few over to the McCain campaign to cool down that candidate’s rhetoric.

Richard H. Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.