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Spaced Shuttle DiplomacyWhy did it take so long to get to Annapolis?

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2007, at 6:48 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

After her first stop in Israel, Rice wanted to meet with friendly Arab diplomats in Cairo, but Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, refused. No Arab leader wanted to host such a session and risk looking like a handmaiden to American one-sidedness. Instead, they met in Rome and, predictably, accomplished nothing.

(By the way, this may have been the genesis of a new Israeli verb, lecondel—in Hebrew, "to Condel," short for "to Condoleezza"—meaning, as the New York Times' Steven Erlanger has explained, to come and go for meetings that produce few results.)

The consequences of Bush and Rice's passivity were disastrous. Israel didn't lose the war, but it didn't win, either, and that's what it had to do to maintain its image of invincibility, which has long deterred hostile neighbors from contemplating aggression. Hezbollah didn't win, but all it had to do was not lose, and it clearly achieved that goal, enhancing its reputation as the power that had stood up to the Zionists and faced them down.

Before this crisis, and even for a while after, Rice echoed—and, to some extent, believed—Bush's sentiment that American statesmen of the previous 60 years had erred in promoting stability over democracy. Annapolis signifies that she—and, to some extent, Bush—now recognize, however reluctantly, that sometimes stability is more important, and may be the only feasible goal, after all. The very fact that Syria was invited to the conference represents an end to Bush's doctrine of "regime change."

The fact that Syria attended may mean something larger still. As David Brooks noted a few weeks ago in a very intriguing New York Times column (which, I'm told by someone else, was inspired by a briefing from Rice aboard her plane), the main goal of the then-impending Annapolis conference would be not so much the signing of an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty as the forging of an anti-Iran alliance. "Flipping" the Syrians—offering them an incentive to break away from Iran—would go a long way toward that goal. As NPR's Deborah Amos has observed, Syria's attendance might mark a step toward this flip.

Of course, the flip—and much else—could have taken place far more dramatically in July 2006, when the Sunni-led powers of the Arab League were not only ready to confront the Iranian-backed Shiite Hezbollah, but to do so in support of Israel. At Annapolis, by contrast, the Saudi delegation pointedly refused to shake any Israeli's hand.

There are larger issues. Even if Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas strikes a deal with Israel, it's extremely unlikely to be accepted by Hamas, which controls the Palestinian parliament (and much of "the street"). Or, to put it another way, it's extremely unlikely that, in the next 14 months, Israel will sign a deal that Hamas would find acceptable.

And yet the fact that Bush has pushed Israel to open negotiations with the Palestinians—remarkably, the first time he has done so in his entire seven years in office—makes it politically easier for other Arab leaders to take part in other kinds of talks with the United States. The question is: What kinds of talks is Bush willing to hold? What is Bush willing to offer the Syrians in exchange for splitting from Iran? He's taken one big step by meeting in the same room with them. Will he go one further and cut a deal with them, too?

In short, will Annapolis turn out to be the staging ground for a major leap forward—or another round of lecondel-ing? The early signs point to the latter. President Bush, who stayed at the one-day conference for only a few hours, seems less than fully engaged. Even Rice, who has put all the hopes of her legacy in this basket, is oddly backing away from a full-court personal press. She reportedly will soon name retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones as the U.S. envoy to the Middle East. (It is staggering that, until now, the Bush administration has had no such envoy.) Jones, a former NATO commander, is able and astute, but he has little experience in the region and—more to the point—little standing as a surrogate for Bush or Rice. An envoy needs to be able to speak—and, at times, to negotiate—with authority. It's unclear that Jones has, or will be perceived as having, that authority.

Thomas Friedman wrote in his New York Times column today that we'll know something real is happening in these talks if we pick up a newspaper and read that moderates in the negotiations are "doing things that surprise you." One big—and essential—surprise would be that President Bush is getting on a plane and putting himself on the line.

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Fred Kaplan writes Slate's "War Stories" column and is the author of Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power, due out in February. He can be reached at .
Photograph of George Bush and Mahmoud Abbas by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
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