HOW BUSH TURNED ON ARAFAT.
Torpedo Boat

by Lawrence F. Kaplan

Post date 02.07.02 | Issue date 02.18.02

 
Though lost in the sea of words parsing President Bush's reference to the "axis of evil," another equally historic passage was contained in last week's State of the Union address. Along with Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, Bush singled out as America's foes "groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Jaish-e-Mohammed." As it happens, three of the four operate largely against Israel, not against the United States. Couple that with the inclusion of Iran--which wouldn't have found its way onto Bush's roster but for its sponsorship of terror against the Jewish state--and you have the outlines of a momentous shift in U.S. policy. Bush's speech came less than one week after a still more telling remark: his accusation that Palestinian Authority (P.A.) Chairman Yasir Arafat was "enhancing terror" (this about a man who only months ago Bush insisted the "world ought to applaud" for "trying to control radical elements"). And it came on the heels of the president's decision not to send Middle East peace-processor Anthony Zinni back to the region. As Ariel Sharon arrives in Washington for his fourth White House visit in one year, this much is now evident: Quietly, fitfully--but unmistakably--the Bush team has begun to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the way Israel does.

So what changed? First, the war on terrorism. On January 3, Israel captured a ship, the Karine A, headed to Gaza from Iran packed with 50 tons of rockets, guns, and mortars. Its origin offered proof, as national security adviser Condoleezza Rice put it, of "Iranian interference." Iran, however, dispatched two arms shipments to the Palestinians last year, and American officials uttered not a peep. But, on September 11, the rules changed. And, in the midst of its war on terror, the Bush administration could hardly ignore evidence that Arafat himself was importing massive quantities of arms from a nation that the State Department had recently labeled the world's "most active state sponsor of terrorism."

But, with the Karine A, Arafat not only crossed the United States strategically; he crossed Bush personally. The episode humiliated the administration, single-handedly destroying a diplomatic mission into which the Bush team had sunk an extraordinary amount of political capital. The State Department's Zinni actually watched news of the Karine A's capture on television while Arafat was sitting beside him. The P.A. chairman's subsequent dissembling, evasions, and outright lies--including a letter to Bush in which he denied any knowledge of the ship or its mission--enraged the president further. As a result, Arafat has accomplished what Ariel Sharon never could: He has aligned the United States and Israel more closely than at any time since the Reagan presidency.

"I mean, what does he take us for?" That's how a senior State Department official describes the administration's immediate response to news of the Karine A. But following the initial shock, America's diplomatic corps went into denial. One week after the seizure, Secretary of State Colin Powell could still be heard insisting that he had "not seen any information that yet links [the Karine A] directly to Chairman Arafat." Another administration official pleaded to United Press International (UPI): "There is no benefit for Iran to become an adversary of Israel or the United States to the degree implied by the shipments--Iran is making new efforts to rejoin the community of law-abiding nations." On the ground in Israel, Zinni continued to enthuse about "real opportunities for progress," noting that both sides needed to focus on "building confidence."

Foggy Bottom's see-no-evil policy infuriated officials at the White House and the Pentagon. "Arafat slaps us in the face," recounts a senior Pentagon official, "and [the State Department's] only reaction is 'How can we brush this under the rug?'" But, on January 9, senior Israeli intelligence officials briefed their American counterparts on evidence of Arafat's involvement with the Karine A--the use of P.A. funds for the arms purchases, the involvement of Arafat's deputies, and proof that the Palestinian leader himself authorized the transfer--evidence that quickly found its way to the president. So, too, did proof that Iran had supplied the ship's cargo. Iran's involvement reinforced a point that aides in the Pentagon and the vice president's office had been making for more than a month: that Arafat isn't merely an enemy of Israel, he's a walking rogue state. As Vice President Dick Cheney explained in a January 28 appearance on cnn: "What's most disturbing isn't just the shipment of arms, it's the fact that it came from Iran." True, the administration had itself once entertained the idea of a rapprochement with the Islamic republic. But Iran's conduct during the war in Afghanistan--including evidence that Tehran has been harboring fleeing members of Al Qaeda--as well as Bush's black-and-white reading of the war on terror, had stalled the plan. And the Karine A, which amounted to a brazen example of state-sponsored terror--a practice to which the president insists the United States will no longer turn a blind eye--sank it altogether.

Iran's military involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict also had immediate bureaucratic implications: By putting Arafat on the wrong side of the war on terrorism, the Karine A widened the debate about America's policy toward that conflict beyond the State Department. Officials at the Pentagon and the White House--who have much less invested in the peace process than their colleagues at Foggy Bottom--began wresting control of Israel policy from the State Department in mid-January while Powell was out of the country. With the secretary of state on his way to Afghanistan, the White House convened a principals' meeting that included Cheney, Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage sitting in for Powell. Cheney and Rumsfeld came out swinging. The United States, they argued, should consider cutting its ties to Arafat. Armitage responded that even the Israelis weren't planning to do that. Bush wasn't there, and no decision was made. But a two-week-long debate had begun. And a door had been opened: Israel policy would no longer be the exclusive property of the State Department.

  Meanwhile, Rumsfeld's team not only persuaded the National Security Council (NSC) to hold up Zinni's original plan to return to Israel a few days later, but it also quashed a last-minute State Department proposal to dispatch Assistant Secretary of State William Burns--who happened to be traveling in the region--in his place. In this effort they were aided by the fact that the NSC's Arab-Israeli (but mostly Arab) point man, Bruce Riedel, had departed his White House post one month earlier. Defense Department protests have also held up the appointment of Riedel's designated successor, Middle East expert Alina Romanowski, whom Pentagon officials suspect of being insufficiently supportive of the Jewish state. In fact, Bush advisers now say the NSC's senior Arab-Israeli slot may never be filled. All of which has essentially left management of Israel policy at the NSC in the hands of Rice, whose views closely reflect the inclinations of the president.

And as the State of the Union address so vividly demonstrated, Bush has grown comfortable enough with those inclinations to enshrine them in official policy without consulting Foggy Bottom beforehand. Shortly after being apprised that Arafat knew the exact destination of the Karine A, Bush himself weighed in with a blunt letter to the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt. Publicly, the letter was described as an outline of the case linking Arafat to the Karine A and a request for Arab help in persuading Arafat to renounce terror. According to several officials, it was more of a warning. As one summarized it: "If Arafat doesn't get his act together, and fast, we've had it."

  During the third week of January the president received a letter from Arafat in response. In it, the chairman denied knowing anything about the mysterious Iranian ship--despite the fact that the United States now possessed overwhelming evidence to the contrary. "Arafat lied directly to Bush," says one senior official. "No one does that, least of all someone who's already on probation." Arafat had feigned ignorance to Powell and other State Department officials. Yet Bush took the insult personally. "[The president] had already rejected the conventional wisdom that Arafat is someone who can be trusted, and always saw him clearly and for who he is," says Pentagon adviser Richard Perle. "But Arafat flatly lied, and the president is understandably upset about that." Privately, an exasperated Bush fumed to his aides about the baldness of Arafat's evasions. Publicly, he rued the fact that he had taken Arafat "at his word."

That Friday, January 25, Bush finally met with his principals--this time with Powell present--to reconcile their differences on Israel policy. In truth, word had already filtered down to a meeting of the Cabinet's deputies the day before: The president was disgusted with Arafat, but he wasn't ready to jettison the Palestinian leader just yet. Still, Rumsfeld and Cheney made their case once more: Arafat's involvement with Iran, his failure to crack down on the terrorists in his midst, his shameless lies about the Karine A--all these things disqualified him as a peace partner. At the very least, they argued, the United States should consider closing down the P.A.'s offices in Washington and adding Arafat's militias (the Al Aqsa Brigades, for instance) to the State Department's list of terror groups. And under no circumstances should Zinni be permitted to return to the region.

Powell countered that the key to dealing with Arafat is patience. Forceful action against him, he argued, would harm America's bilateral relations with its Arab allies--whose foreign ministries had besieged the State Department with pleas to remain engaged with the Palestinian leader--and destroy any prospects for a cease-fire on the ground. Bush split the difference, siding with Powell's admonition not to sever ties with Arafat and postponing any decision about shuttering the P.A.'s offices or placing Arafat's militias on the terror list. Still, the president agreed that Zinni shouldn't return to Israel any time soon. He also authorized the principals to ratchet up their anti-Arafat rhetoric.

Later that day the president himself did exactly that, accusing the Palestinian leader of "enhancing terror." Echoing Bush's remarks on ABC's "This Week" two days later, Cheney added, "We don't believe [Arafat].... He has been implicated now in an operation that puts him working with a terrorist organization, Hezbollah, and Iran, a state that's devoted to torpedoing the peace process." For his part, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer noted that the president endorses Israel's decision to confine Arafat to Ramallah. Even the State Department's customary denunciations of Israeli "excesses" have been silenced. Finally, in his memorable State of the Union address, the president identified Israel's enemies as America's own.

And, having blurred the line between the two countries' interests, Bush has created precedents and expectations that will likely shape America's approach to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict for years to come. Precedents, because until recently his administration was still distinguishing between terrorism based on "political issues" (i.e., anti-Israeli terror) and terrorism that sought to "destroy societies" (i.e., anti-American terror). Expectations, because having defined the threat to the Jewish state as malignant, the president can no more opt for equivocal action in Israel's defense than he can in defending the United States against the "axis of evil." To be sure, Foggy Bottom still hasn't gotten the message. Last week Powell advised Sharon to avoid "provocations" and be "constrained." But, try as he may, Israel policy no longer rests with the State Department. It's in safer hands now.

LAWRENCE F. KAPLAN is a senior editor at TNR.