Regardless of who takes over the White House, little will change in the substance of US handling of the Arab-Israeli conflict, writes El-Sayed Amin Shalabi* In a few months, the US will have a new president. But how far will he be able to change the face of US foreign policy? Of all aspects of US policy, foreign policy is the least prone to change. During the Cold War, successive US administrations, both Republican and Democratic, engaged in a fierce attempt to contain the Soviet Union and assert US military superiority, an aim that drove American politicians to forge close ties with Europe and Japan and at one point pursue close ties with China. It was the Republican administration of Nixon that initiated the rapprochement with Beijing, but it was the Democratic administration of Carter that consolidated that effort. Once the Cold War was over, George Bush Sr coined the phrase "new world order" and went on to interpret it as meaning that the US had the final say in world affairs. Clinton, a Democrat, maintained a similar stand throughout the Bosnian and other crises. The same thing goes for the Middle East. If you go over the past few decades, you'd notice that the US has maintained rather a steady view of our turbulent region. During the Cold War, all the Americans could think of was keeping the Soviets away. Once the Soviets were no more, Washington started thinking in terms of weapons of mass destruction and fundamentalist extremism. Consequently, it strove to isolate radical countries such as Iran, Iraq, Libya and Sudan. The US unquestioning support of Israel has changed little over the years. The Democratic administration of Johnson stood behind Israel in the 1967 War with the same zeal the Republican administration of Nixon did in the 1973 War. Every US administration since then voiced and reiterated its commitment to keep Israel stronger than its Arab neighbours combined. The Americans consistently saw themselves as the main powerbroker in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since Henry Kissinger arranged for the disengagement agreements on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts, the agreements that paved the way for the Camp David Accords, the US maintained more or less steady involvement in the Middle East peace process. Three years after Camp David, the Reagan Initiative of 1980 addressed two critical issues in the conflict. One was Israeli settlement building, with the initiative demanding their halt. The second was a Palestinian state, which the initiative said would be best created in affiliation with Jordan. But the Reagan Initiative was left in the hands of low- level emissaries and eventually faded out. The Bush Sr administration made another high-level attempt to revive the peace process. It brought together the various parties to the Middle East conflict in Madrid, kick-starting the peace process and launching the land-for-peace principle. The Bush Sr administration put pressure on the Shamir-led Likud government to attend the Madrid conference. It also told the Israelis that they couldn't use the loan guarantees it gave them to build new settlements. The momentum created by the Madrid conference was maintained by the Democratic administration of Clinton, which encouraged the signing of the Oslo Accords and the Israeli-Jordanian agreement. Clinton saw these agreements as landmarks of his presidency and maintained close ties with the leaders associated with these agreements: Yitzhaq Rabin, Shimon Peres, Yasser Arafat and King Hussein. Clinton's most daring move, however, came in his last year in office. He invited the Palestinians and Israelis for a second round of talks at Camp David in July 2000 and came near to arranging an agreement. The negotiations collapsed at the last minute. The Republican administration of George Bush Jr initially criticised Clinton's efforts and then proceeded to distance itself from the peace process, apart from ambivalent statements about the so-called "roadmap" and its vision of a two-state solution. As pressures built on Bush Jr to do something, he retraced Clinton's footsteps, organising the Annapolis conference and promising a deal before the end of 2008. Just as in Clinton's case, it was too late. One can safely assume that the coming administration, Democratic or Republican, would do what other administrations did in the past. It would stand firm behind Israel while venturing sporadically into the peacemaking business. And it will have something to build upon, for the Annapolis conference spawned several tracks of talks. Most likely, the new administration will wait and see what happens in these talks. If they look good, it might endorse them and try to move them forward. It the talks stumble, the new administration will probably lose interest, take time to think about it, and eventually try something else. * The writer is executive director of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs.
