Bush must not be the first to blink

Julian Borger, Guardian News Service, Washington

Even before Colin Powell plunged into his long-shot attempt to achieve a Middle East ceasefire on Friday, the U.S. secretary of state's negotiating power had been undermined by the White House, which unceremoniously backed down from a confrontation with Ariel Sharon.

Having insisted on Sunday that the Israeli prime minister withdraw his troops from the West Bank "now, without delay, not tomorrow" -- in the words of the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice -- by the end of the week the White House had dropped all expressions of urgency.

When Powell met Sharon on Sunday night, both would have been keenly aware of the vacillation back in Washington, and it showed in their remarks. The secretary of state of the world's sole superpower was reduced to expressing hope that an agreement could be reached on a withdrawal timetable, while the Israeli leader simply restated his position. His troops would leave when they were good and ready.

At the White House, the president's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, lauded Sharon as "a man of peace", and stressed that the decision to meet with Yasser Arafat had been Powell's alone.

President Bush went eyeball to eyeball with Sharon and blinked, in an inverted replay of his father's clash a decade ago with another Israeli rightwinger, Yitzhak Shamir. Shamir clashed with Bush senior and lost his job in part because he had lost U.S. confidence. The incident contributed to the conventional wisdom that no Israeli leader could afford to alienate the Americans. That may still hold in the long-term, but not under present circumstances.

Unlike his father, the current President Bush has yet to fight his war with Iraq, and has no Arab coalition alongside him. Furthermore, the Israeli Labour party has been crippled and the only real alternative to Sharon is Binyamin Netanyahu who is calling for Arafat's deportation from the occupied territories -- something Sharon would do if not constrained by his coalition partnership with Labour. Just in case, he has reinforced the right wing of his government to give himself the option of dropping Labour, if circumstances demand.

In Washington, there is minimal Congressional backing for a tough stance towards Israel. Netanyahu was feted this week in Congress where Democrats and Republicans vied to outdo each other to pledge backing for Israel. Meanwhile, Arafat has lost all sympathy by his failure to restrain terrorism. Support is building in the Senate for a draft to brand the Palestinian Liberation Organization a terrorist group and shut down its Washington office.

However, while the White House has made a dash for political safety, the logic of the worsening situation in the Middle East is likely to drag it back into dangerous waters. There is an imminent danger of a wider war. Washington is currently relying on Moscow's good offices to persuade Syria and Iran to restrain Hizbullah in southern Lebanon. Powell has also been given a direct reminder by America's most important Arab allies -- Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt -- that their own stability is in danger.

President Bush's immediate task is to prevent havoc spreading across the Middle East. He will need his Arab allies to prod Arafat towards a ceasefire, but their support is contingent on Sharon being bullied into a total withdrawal and the immediate start of political negotiations aimed at the creation of the Palestinian state. Sooner or later, Bush will have to take Sharon on once more, this time without blinking.