On Monday in Beirut, nothing will happen. Yet again. George Mitchell, the special envoy of US President Barack Obama for the Middle East, will visit Beirut on Monday, and nothing will happen on the front of the region’s peace process, just as largely nothing has happened in the nearly 10 years since Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, was elected president.
This might sound like an accusation, an implication that the US alone is somehow to blame for the lack of progress in creating peace between the Israelis and Arabs; that’s not exactly right – the fault of all that is wrong in the Middle East does not lie only with somebody else, despite the many loud claims one might hear to that effect from throughout the region.
But Mitchell’s return – albeit without results – is a reminder that the US remains the only power capable of getting a deal done between Israel and Palestine, Israel and Syria and – yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus – between Israel and Lebanon, maybe some day down the road.
Mitchell is here largely to discuss with his Lebanese counterparts the letters of intent that Obama is preparing to present to the Israelis and the Palestinians. These letters will serve to set out something like the signposts of negotiations – how the US wants to proceed on issues such as Israeli settlements, Gaza and the negotiation process itself.
Nothing against such letters of intent, and nothing against yet another push for peace, but the situation seems like nothing so much as a classroom of unruly students – with their homework mostly complete long ago – waiting for the return of the headmaster to bring some order, administer the final exam and pass the students on and up.
The various Arab nations and the Israelis know the material for the exam; they’ve known it for decades, really. But for a seemingly endless recess the classroom has been a free-for-all, waiting for some authority to come in, knock the children’s heads together and set the exam in front of them.
We do not wish to cast the US in the role of savior, but merely as a figure of authority with the strength to get peace accords done. Since the fall of the Soviet Union many have referred to the US as a hyperpower, and reams of paper have been filled speculating about a new, multipolar world, the rise of Brazil-Russia-India-China and so on. The fact, however, remains that the US and only the US has the capability to bring the enemies of the Middle East to the table and get a deal done.
Let us not be distracted by the commotion among the Israelis and Palestinians over settlements and preconditions to negotiations. Nearly all of that rhetoric is intended for domestic consumption.
This is not to say that a deal is imminent, or that we predict the Obama administration will complete a deal. The point is that that, despite rumors of its demise, the US still has the power to get a deal done here, and the absence of such an authority – the absence of a genuine push for peace – has been sorely felt here since the new millennium arrived.
We have witnessed the status quo persisting for these years to a significant degree because the US did not force the sides to change their behavior. One other thing we have learned is that when the headmaster is away, the neighborhood bully has been able to rule the schoolyard largely according to his own whims.
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Copyright © 2010, The Daily Star. All rights reserved. Click here to contact our syndication department for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material. Contact the Online editor to report any problems with the site or to send your comments and suggestions. var sc_project=731379; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_partition=6; var sc_security="3de32f75"; LEBANON NEWS Politics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .» Five cooperation deals on table as Hariri visits UAE» Nasrallah: Arab leaders pressuring Palestinians into talks with Israel» Iran VP backs Lebanon's unity, independenceBusiness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .» Merrill downgrades Lebanese Eurobonds to "�Under Weight'» Bifani: Tax evasion in Lebanon hurts treasury and economy» Hassan rules out privatization this year -- More Lebanon News -- _uacct = "UA-360006-1"; urchinTracker();
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More Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . »Israel: A tale of two narratives »Can ElBaradei revivify Egypt? »Paying the price of sectarianism »Making use of our Turkish ties »A spectacle of reconciliations »An Arab world without borders »A last chance for the US on peace »Politicians, your play time is over »The West must cut its terror ties »Where's the Gulf in Yemen? »Venezuela's Chavez accuses Colombia, US of rebel plot »Waiting for Obama in 2010
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