Mideast Strife & The U.S. Election

By David Paul Kuhn,
CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer

The day of Yassin's death, more than 100,000 Palestinians followed his wooden coffin in the streets of Gaza City. Arab leaders decried the assassination in the harshest terms and extremist terror groups vowed furious vengeance. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said Israel's actions were "contrary to international law."

The European Union expressed similar sentiments to the UN. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called it "unacceptable." After being pressed by the tide of world opinion, the Bush administration took the position that the incident was "deeply troubling."

The White House is troubled, but by more than world reaction. As President Bush nears the June 30 deadline for the U.S.-led coalition to hand over sovereignty in Iraq and prepares to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in mid-April, the administration is concerned about rising instability in the region – which no American president wants as he fights for reelection.

"The White House is going to be very mindful that it is an election year. They will certainly want to show that the United States is a trustworthy and constant ally of Israel and at the same time they want to make sure that actions taken in Israeli-Palestinian conflict do not reverberate in the region," said Michael Yaffe, who served from 1993-2001 as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Middle East peace process. "You really want to show that your policies are working."

In the Middle East, working means stability. It is the area of diplomacy with the lowest expectations: just do not let things get worse. This is especially true since the second Palestinian Intifada began in September 2000.

Monday, the Bush administration initially refused to condemn the targeted killing. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice spoke on the morning television circuit, calling for all parties to "step back." Later, the State Department asked for "maximum restraint," but stopped short of condemnation.

"The White House is not going to stop the Sharon government from taking actions that they believe are in their self defense," said Yaffe, currently a professor in the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. "At the same time, they would also want to make sure Israel would not take action that would harm pressure on the roadmap for peace."

James Phillips, Middle East specialist for the Heritage Foundation, called the White House's problem the possible "perception that things are getting worse."

"That's one reason the White House is concerned," Phillips added. "Although there has been considerable progress, most people focus on the most recent activity. This action, in the short, will probably lead to more terrorism."

Israel viewed Yassin as its Osama bin Laden, explained Ambassador Arye Mekel, the deputy permanent representative of Israel to the United Nations. Mekel emphasized that Israel did not consider Iraq when targeting Yassin, even though most Middle East experts link the Iraqi insurgency invariably with the stability, if not improvement, of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We have very little interest in Iraq; we don't get involved. We have so many problems of our own," Mekel said. "We know that our interest is cooperation with the United States in the process of implementation of this plan, the Gaza Disengagement Plan, and we are about to present it to the president." He added, "We would like the United States to adopt this plan."

The details of the Gaza Disengagement Plan are still being determined. With Sharon's visit to Washington expected next month, Israel will present its plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip to President Bush.

Some Middle East experts speculate that the killing of Yassin, and further attacks on the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), are intended to make sure an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza is not viewed as a sign of weakness. A similar withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 was seen widely in the Arab world as a victory for Hezbollah.

For now, the assassination of Yassin – which was criticized in Israeli newspapers nationwide as being incendiary – has prompted Israel to close its borders and even led the New York Police Department to increase security in heavily Jewish areas of the city, illustrating that little in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is strictly regional.

"In an election year you do not want unpredictable things to happen. In that regard, I would imagine any White House would be very concerned," said Yaffe, adding that there would likely be U.S. pressure on Israel to take no more action that inflames the region.

"In the Middle East you always have to tend the field because if you don't, you don't know where the fruits are going to come out," Yaffe added. "You need constant involvement."

By David Paul Kuhn