Clinton, Saddam and Rabin: The Need for Policy Choices

By Leon T. Hadar

During President William Clinton's first few weeks in the White House, his mixed signals regarding Iraq and the Arab-Israeli peace process created confusion in Washington and the Middle East. Although a New York Times interview with Clinton a few days before his inauguration pointed to clear differences with his predecessor over Iraq, his advisers were quick to reject the Times' Clinton-wants-to-normalize-relations-with-Iraq spin.

Instead, Secretary of State Warren Christopher suggested in his confirmation hearings only that Clinton "wanted to keep the feud from being personalized." However, both Clinton and Christopher have repeated that there would not be changes in U.S. policy toward Iraq so long as Saddam remains in power. So much for the pledge not to "personalize" the conflict.

In fact, for the new president, who promised to focus like a "laser beam" on America's domestic economic problems, the idea of spending his first months in office proving to "Bill" Safire, "Abe" Rosenthal, and other members of the Middle East media mafia that he is as "macho" as Bush when it comes to Saddam Hussain does not make much sense.

Instead, a gradual rapprochement with Iraq, or at least a cooling-off action, fits with the interests of such other regional U.S. allies as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. They do not want to see Iraq divided into Sunni, Shi'i and Kurdish states. Other members of the anti-Saddam coalition, such as France and Russia, also are opposed, for different reasons, to escalation in the conflict with Baghdad.

Those pressing for a showdown with Iraq are well aware that even limited U.S. moves such as attacking Iraqi air-defense bases could have a snowball effect. They can lead to the shooting down of an American warplane, which, in turn, would put pressure on the new president to produce at least a scaled-down rerun of Desert Storm. Such a development would end the Arab-Israeli peace process, and make the Middle East, at least in the short run, safe for an intransigent U.S.-funded Israel.

President Clinton's backing down from his initial new diplomatic approach only helped to expose his weakness in the eyes of the usual suspects among media pundits—those longing for a U.S. invasion of Baghdad—inviting more pressure from them in the future. At the same time, the move confused both the Iraqis and America's allies in the region, magnifying Clinton's image as an inexperienced foreign policy operator.

Israel and Iraq: Double Standards?

Regarding the Arab-Israeli peace process, the signals from the new foreign policy team are equally unclear. On one hand, continuity is signaled in the decision to reappoint Assistant Secretary of State Edward Djerejian and two of his key aides in the Middle East bureau. Similarly, the appointment of such officials of the Carter administration, deplored by the Israel lobby for its alleged "anti-Israeli" orientation, as Christopher, Peter Tarnoff as undersecretary of state for political affairs, and Anthony Lake as national security adviser, point to a basically evenhanded approach on the Arab-Israeli issues.

Certainly Clinton's initial resistance to the pressure on him to appoint such pro-Likud, neoconservative, former Republicans as Richard Schifter and Joshua Muravchick, or AIPAC-tainted Democrat Stuart Eizenstat, to top positions in the State Department is good news. It is possible that Clinton listened to the advice of his pal, New York Times columnist Leslie Gelb, who warned the president against the "neocons," whom Gelb called "self-appointed arbiters of who loves Israel" and "Jews whose main aim will be to support Israel right or wrong."

The rejection of the neocons and other pro-Israel figures, according to the National Journal, made the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other components of the pro-Israel lobby unhappy "that it hasn't had more input into Bill Clinton's cabinet." But that was somewhat neutralized by the appointment of Martin Indyk, head of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as National Security Council Middle East adviser, a job that was held during the Bush term by Richard N. Haass. Indyk's first job after arriving in the United States from his native Australia and two years in Israel was as deputy to AIPAC research director Steven Rosen. Since then, Indyk's AIPAC spin-off think tank has seldom wandered far from AIPAC's line of the day.

Indyk's appointment was made despite strong opposition from prominent Jewish supporters of the Israeli Peace Now movement, some of whom had close ties to the Clinton campaign. They pointed to Indyk's hawkish positions and his strong ties to the former Likud government.

There is an inherent inconsistency between a policy aimed at containing Saddam's expansionism, condemning his treatment of the Kurds and the Shi'i, and going after his military nuclear arsenal, and a benign neglect toward Israeli annexationist policies, its treatment of the Palestinians and its nuclear capabilities. This inconsistency was highlighted in the first weeks of the Clinton term, when he and his spokesmen continued to threaten Iraq with punishment unless it complied with the relevant U.N. resolutions while, at the same time, attempting to derail Security Council sanctions against Israel for its refusal to abide by U.N. demands that it permit the return of the 400 Palestinian expellees from southern Lebanon.

Washington and Israel: Time for Tough Talk

But the question of the expellees is really a metaphor for the larger issue of the U.S. relationship with Israel, and especially with the new Rabin government. The Labor government won election on a peace platform, promising to adopt a more conciliatory approach toward the Palestinians. Rabin even predicted that he would reach an agreement with the Palestinians within "six to nine months" of his election. In return for projecting this sense of optimism, and virtually nothing else, the new prime minister won from the U.S. media an outflow of goodwill and from Washington the first $2 billion installment of a projected $10 billion in U.S. Ioan guarantees over five years—in addition to the annual entitlement program to Israel of well over $3 billion.

However, seven months after the Israeli elections, Rabin's contribution to the peace process has been continuation of the bloody suppression of the Palestinian intifada, the recycling of the old Likud plan to retain the occupied territories, and deportation of hundreds of alleged Islamist leaders without a semblance of due process.

It is this kind of arrogance, based on Rabin's expectations that Washington will resume treating Israel with kid gloves, that President Clinton will have to confront if he hopes to retain any of the accomplishments of the Bush administration either in the peace process or in building confidence in the U.S. among Arab moderates.

According to reports in the Israeli press, Clinton has indicated that he will agree to an early meeting only if Rabin brings to Washington a clear and realistic peace plan with which the administration could move the negotiations forward. To make Rabin listen, however, Clinton will have to muster public support for a policy of pressure on Israel, despite the expected outcry from the media and Capitol Hill.

Because Clinton tends to refrain from antagonizing core constituencies, it seems doubtful that he will be willing to challenge Israel and its U.S. Lobby as clearly as did Bush. The result might be a stalemate in the peace process.

In the short run, such an interval might fit Clinton's desire not to invest too much political energy in the issue. In the long run, however, leaving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict unsolved will continue to haunt this administration. As in the case of previous administrations, it can exact a high price in media and congressional hostility, as well as time and money better spent closer to home.