Clinton Administration Working to Ease U.N. Out of Middle East Process

By Phyllis Bennis

Bill Clinton has disappointed his supporters in virtually every arena—backing down from commitments, abandoning his few progressive appointees at the first hint of controversy, attempting to out-Republican the GOP itself. But some still held a shred of hope that a long-claimed commitment to multilateralism in general and the U.N. in particular would distinguish the Clinton administration from its predecessors.

Unfortunately, at least in regard to the Middle East, that last-ditch hope has collapsed. On the one hand Clinton strategists are seeking to replicate the Bush White House's successful efforts to actively engage the United Nations to legitimize U.S. efforts to weaken, isolate and impoverish Iraq and Libya. But simultaneously, reflecting their boss's I-am-too-more-pro-Israeli-than-the-Republicans stance, the White House has largely succeeded at keeping the U.N. out of the political loop on Arab-Israeli peace issues, especially on the key question of Palestine.

The U.S. appeals for U.N. anti-Iraq and anti-Libya activism emerge largely within the Security Council, where the threat of a U.S. veto hovers over decision-making. And in at least two of those instances, the U.S. succeeded in maintaining Council sanctions against its chosen Arab enemies, despite Libyan and Iraqi acquiescence to Council-imposed requirements. Like the Bush administration's brilliant U.N. tactician Thomas Pickering, Clinton's Ambassador Madeleine K. Albright shows little reluctance to move the Middle East goalposts to ensure a few extra U.S. points in the game.

Sanctions were first imposed on Libya in April 1992 to force compliance with the U.S.-U.K. demand that Tripoli turn over for trial two Libyan nationals accused in the 1986 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. (The sanctions move was itself part of a major U.S. campaign to consolidate U.N. decision-making in the Council, away from the more democratic components of the U.N. The International Court of Justice already had agreed to begin hearings on whether Libya's proposals either to try the suspects itself or turn them over for trial in a neutral country were within the strictures of the anti-hijacking Montreal Convention. The U.S.-orchestrated Council decision resulted in the ICJ dropping the case.) The Nov. 30, 1994 decision to continue sanctions (rescheduled a day early to ensure the debate would go on while Albright was still presiding over the Council) was taken at U.S. urging, despite Tripoli's latest offer to allow the two suspects to be tried by Scottish judges under Scottish law at the ICJ headquarters in The Hague.

Similarly, the Council decision to renew its punishing oil sanctions against Iraq was taken despite Baghdad's fulfillment of the requirements imposed by the 1991 ceasefire resolution. The prohibition against Iraq's export of oil was linked to the enforcement of six specific conditions, aimed at ending Iraq's nuclear and weapons-of-mass-destruction projects. According to the Oct. 7, 1994 report of the U.N.'s own special commission, those stipulations had been at least minimally met. The requirements include the destruction of chemical, biological and ballistic weapons systems; acceptance of a U.N. special commission to monitor their destruction; agreement not to produce or use such weapons; reaffirmation of Iraq's obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; agreement not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons or material; and the creation of a U.N.-IAEA plan to monitor and verify Iraqi compliance with the anti-nuclear provisions. (However grudging his compliance may have been, the terms of cease-fire Resolution 687 did not require Saddam Hussain to change his attitude, only his weaponry.)

The Clinton administration's more-Catholic-than-the-pope attitude toward Israel is clear.

Certainly Iraq's own ill-conceived troop movement last October made the U.S. effort easier. Russia and France, both of whom are owed large sums of money by Baghdad and are looking toward future trade and likely arms deals, wanted to consider seriously lifting the embargo this time around. China also appeared open to lifting the restrictions. But the U.S.-U.K. alliance (under increased pressure because of reports that a resumption of Iraqi oil exports would lead to a 15 percent drop in world oil prices) proved too powerful. Both Washington and London were unwilling to budge from their positions that Iraqi compliance with the six specific requirements for lifting the oil embargo was insufficient. Instead, as British Ambassador David Hannay said last Nov. 11, "There is a very long list of things Iraq has to do to get sanctions lifted, which is related to its policies and practices." Since even Iraq's reluctant acceptance of its U.N.-determined border with Kuwait failed to convince the Council to lift the sanctions, it appears that among Iraq's "policies and practices" that must be changed is the presidency of Saddam Hussain.

The U.S. Goes Public

But Washington has not ignored U.N. agencies outside the Council. Its efforts to curtail U.N. involvement in the Middle East peace process targets the General Assembly. In fact the most explicit articulation of the Clinton administration's Middle East goals for the U.N. emerged in the Aug. 8, 1994 letter sent by Ambassador Albright to the incoming president of the Assembly, outlining U.S. priorities for the coming term.

First of the "Key Issues" identified in the letter is the Middle East peace process , especially the Israeli-Palestinian arena. It is here that the Clinton administration's more-Catholic-than-the-pope attitude toward Israel becomes clear, especially if one compares Albright's letter to the Nov. 9 statement of Israel's Ambassador Gad Yaacobi.

Yaacobi's statement was a relatively modest one. He welcomed moves already taken by the U.N., such as increasing the role of UNDP, UNRWA, and other agencies in providing economic and development aid in the region; embracing the Madrid process and its progeny; and repealing the Zionism-is-a-form-of-racism resolution. Thereby, he said, the General Assembly showed it had "taken to heart...the dangers of abusing this forum of peace." The only new thing Yaacobi called for was Israel's admission into one of the regional groups, which determine rotating Security Council seats and participation in other geographically chosen positions, and from which Israel had, to date, been excluded.

Albright's pro-Israeli agenda was much more ambitious, aimed at nothing less than removing Arab-Israeli relations and the question of Palestine from the U.N. agenda. She began with what sounded like a threat: "Adopting a positive resolution welcoming progress in the peace process, as we did in 1993," she asserted, "will test the U.N.'s new realistic approach." She went on to specific demands that "contentious resolutions that accentuate political differences without prompting solutions should be consolidated [the various UNRWA resolutions], improved [the Golan resolution] or eliminated [the Israeli nuclear armament resolution and the self-determination resolution]."

The piœce de résistance of the U.S. framework was the demand that "resolution language referring to 'final status' issues should be dropped, since these issues are now under negotiation by the parties themselves. These include refugees, settlements, territorial sovereignty and the status of Jerusalem."

Although the Assembly did vote a ringing endorsement of the peace process, the U.S. did not succeed in dictating the specifics of most of the other resolutions. Ambassador Nasser al-Kidwa, Palestine's permanent observer at the U.N., said that "Israel and the U.S. made a big mistake. . . it seems their effort backfired because their claim of 'U.N. hands off' was hard to swallow by anybody at the U.N."

The Assembly resolution calling for the application of the Geneva Conventions to all occupied territories including Jerusalem was opposed only by the U.S., Israel, and Gambia. The vote on Israeli practices in the occupied territories was opposed only by the U.S. and Israel. Similarly, only the U.S. and Israel voted against the work of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices, targeted for dismemberment by Washington. And in a series of technical status changes, the emergence of "Palestine" at the U.N. as a non-member observer, with status parallel to other non-members, has taken hold. Travel restrictions on the Palestinian diplomatic team have been lifted, and the U.N. secretary-general has appointed a special coordinator for the occupied territories.

Despite such symbolic gains for the Palestinians, however, the U.S. is succeeding at keeping the U.N. out of the peace process in the region. Assembly resolutions, important as they are in reflecting international public opinion, are not binding in international law.

In fact, the disproportionate power on the ground now held by Israel, and the expansion of that power through the continuation of settlement expansion and land expropriation, is the determining factor in the Oslo-generated bilateral negotiations between Israel and Palestine.

There is a certain irony in the Clinton administration's present more-Israeli-than-the-Israelis position regarding Jerusalem and the other issues deferred by the Oslo agreement. Early in his 1992 election campaign, Clinton called for moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, a policy he declined to implement later when he had the power to do so. Now the issue has resurfaced as the Republicans go into campaign mode, trying to position themselves as defenders of Israel, while the Clinton administration, as co-sponsor of the peace process, struggles to maintain something it can call evenhandedness on this explosive issue.

Al-Kidwa noted that the U.S. will ensure that "the U.N. will be playing some role, but will not be allowed to be a majority player—major events in Middle East diplomacy will not be played on U.N. ground." That position reflects a continuity with the Bush administration's acceptance, in its pre-Madrid negotiations, of Israel's demand that the U.N. be kept out. A single U.N. observer was grudgingly invited to attend the Madrid conference on the humiliating condition that he remain silent and confine himself to reporting back to the secretary-general.

A similar effort to keep the U.N. out of Golan negotiations is emerging in the slow-paced Israel-Syria talks. It is understood and accepted by all sides that the anticipated international peacekeeping force monitoring Israeli withdrawal from and Syria's commitment to demilitarization of the Golan Heights will not involve U.N. blue helmets. Rather, a U.S.-based "multinational force" will handle these duties, reflecting Israel's traditional rejection of the U.N., as well as Syria's apparent lack of concern with bolstering U.N. credibility and power.

Some justify going around the U.N. by the need for an international force which cannot be dislodged by either side withdrawing permission for its presence. This denies the reality that if both sides agreed to accept a U.N. deployment under Chapter VII, for which the consent of the parties is not required, the U.N. would be equally capable of guarding a Golan peace. In fact, the substitution of a U.S.-directed force for a truly multilateral U.N. presence in the Middle East will consolidate even further Washington's unchallenged post-Gulf war regional domination.

Phyllis Bennis is the U.N. and Middle East correspondent for WBAI/Pacifica Radio. Her most recent book is Altered States: A Reader in the New World Order. She is currently working on a new book on U.S. control of the U.N.