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Perils of Peace Conferences

(Los Angeles Times) Aaron David Miller - Secretary of State John Kerry has two diplomatic tracks in the works: ending a civil war in Syria and promoting a peace between Israelis and Palestinians. With both, the parties involved don't know whether they really want to start a political process, and they certainly don't know how to conclude one. In Syria, you have 80,000 dead, which has increased the urgency of a political transition but hardened all parties' willingness to bring one about. Russian President Vladimir Putin is simply not going to allow the Americans to intervene and remove yet another client, after Saddam Hussein and Moammar Kadafi. The rebels have no intention of accepting a semi-permanent transition that risks leaving regime elements whole, in Syria, and beyond the reach of war crimes tribunals. On the Israeli-Palestinian front, can the U.S. find a formula on the core issues - particularly on territory - that meets the Palestinian need to define a border based on the June 1967 lines and the Israeli desire to avoid that focus and to discuss security first? Resuming negotiations without such an understanding almost certainly will lead to a collapse, destroy what remains of the peace process and probably accelerate violence, not delay it. It's hard to argue with the proposition that talking is better than shooting. But it is by no means inexorably bound to succeed, particularly if the parties to the conflict don't feel the urgency to do it; and the outside mediator, in this case the U.S., doesn't have the leverage to make it happen. Indeed, while it may come as a shocker to the Energizer Bunnies of American diplomacy, there are some problems we just can't fix. The writer, a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, served as a Middle East negotiator.
2013-05-31 00:00:00
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