Opinion

Spring In The Diplomatic Garden

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

March 28, 2000 / 4:12 PM EST / CBS

Spring, they say, is the season of hope and renewal.

That may be true in the backyard garden but there doesn't seem much to be hopeful about in the "diplomatic garden" this spring.

President Clinton has just returned from South Asia. After meetings with Indian and Pakistani leaders, Mr. Clinton left the region having failed to persuade them to give up the effort to make advances in their budding nuclear programs.

On his way home, the President stopped in Geneva for a three-hour negotiating session with Syrian President Hafez al-Asad. This meeting's hoped for outcome was to get the stalled Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations back on track. It did not.

President Clinton says "the ball is now in President Asad's court."

Prime Minister Ehud Barak's government in Israel has pledged to pull its forces out of Southern Lebanon by July, thus reducing Syria's leverage on Israel and increasing the chances, according to analysts, that Hizbollah will continue to attack Israeli military forces as they withdraw from the so-called security zone.

Middle East analyst Robert Satloff, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says now is the time for American diplomacy to really go to work -- to prevent a war.

"We're closer to real conflict than anybody thinks," says Satloff.

U.S. mediation efforts on the Israeli-Palestinian track are doing somewhat better. At least the two parties are actively engaged in negotiations.

Senior level negotiators have concluded a round of meetings in Washington which State Department spokesman James Rubin described as "brainstorming" sessions.

The idea was to work through some of the difficult issues related to a final settlement between the parties such as the status of Jerusalem, borders of a future Palestinian state, settlements and refugees.

However, with no senior political figures present, no substantial decisions were expected and none were announced. The negotiators are heading back to the region for consultations and the Washington talks are expected to resume April 6.

Spring has also exposed problems in Kosovo. The dominant ethnic Albanian population has recently taken repressive actions against the minority Serbs in the province, causing American diplomats to rush to the region and read the riot act to our Kosovar-Albanian allies.

This is President Clinton's last diplomatic spring and he remains outwardly hopeful. The President and his foreign policy team will continue to "tend the diplomatic garden," as former Secretary of State Warren Christopher used to say.

There is some time left to see the fruits of their labors, but not much.