The Sharon Effect In Washington
CBS News reporter Charles Wolfson is a former Tel Aviv bureau chief for CBS News, who now covers the State Department.
The impact of Ariel Sharon's departure from the Israeli political scene will of course be felt most acutely in Israel, where Sharon was not only elected to lead the nation but where he is counted as one of the few remaining members of the country's founding generation.
Palestinians, of course, also will have to deal with the ramifications of new Israeli political leadership. Although Sharon was a widely reviled leader in the Arab world, the Palestinian Authority's political leaders had to deal with him, or, as in the case of Gaza disengagement, deal with the effects of Sharon's unilateral decision making.
Outside of the domestic ramifications in Israel, however, Sharon's departure from the political stage will have a very big impact in Washington. President George W. Bush and his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, not only have been personally close to Sharon, but, moreover, they are very much in tune with the Israeli leader's views both in the global war on terrorism and the Middle East peace process.
Aaron Miller, who worked for six secretaries of state, told CBS News "the real consequence is that Prime Minister Sharon and his approach, unilateral actions, including removal of settlements and settlers, was the Bush administration's policy."
Even as Washington and its international partners in the so-called quartet (U.N., Russia and the EU) put forth a road map for peace, Sharon drew his own conclusions about the way forward which led him to the policy of unilateral disengagement from Gaza. The Bush administration had no real choice but to support that policy and try to make it work by coordinating the handover with the Palestinians.
Mr. Bush and the Israeli leader have remained close since then Texas Gov. Bush visited Israel and was given the grand tour by Sharon. The two leaders see eye to eye on confronting terrorists, and while the Bush administration has disagreed with some of Sharon's tactics – such as targeted killings of Palestinian terrorists – it has always couched its disapproval of that policy with the understanding that Israel has a right to protect its citizens. The Israeli leader was considered a close ally and friend and was invited to visit Mr. Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch last April.
With Israeli politics in flux, there is likely to be little or no forward progress on the peace process for some time. One senior state department official said, "Obviously, it'll have an effect. It won't be business as usual." One indication of that is already apparent. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch and the National Security Council's senior advisor on the region, Elliot Abrams, postponed a trip to meet with Israeli and Palestinian officials.
However, there is enough concern in Washington that the administration's new envoy to assist the Palestinian Authority on security issues, Lt. General Keith Dayton, did travel to the region to work with the Palestinians. The senior state department official said the message to the Palestinians was that they "shouldn't see this as a reason not to do what you need to do on the security front and stop preparing for elections," which are scheduled for late January.
On the security front, there is concern among Israeli and American officials that recent terrorist activity from Gaza will lead to Israeli retaliation. A number of Kassem rockets have been fired from Gaza in the past few days and although they have missed their intended targets so far, no one can predict how Israel's new political leadership will react if Israeli citizens are injured or killed in future attacks.
Israel, too, has elections scheduled. Between now and late March, when Israeli voters go to the polls, there will be constant jockeying between the politicians who hope to succeed Sharon as Israel's next political leader. Can anyone fill his shoes? "The reality is no," says Aaron Miller, and that is true in the sense that among the next generation of Israeli political leaders, there is no one of Sharon's stature to take his place.
But the stark political fact facing both the Israeli public and the Bush administration is obvious: someone will replace Ariel Sharon. Sharon's newly formed Kadima party now led by acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a close political ally of Sharon's and the candidate most likely to follow Sharon's course of action, is leading in the current polls. However, Olmert will face strong opposition from former Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and from the new leader of the Labor party, Amir Peretz, who is untested on the international political stage.
This past November, when Secretary Rice last met with Sharon and the PA's President, Mahmoud Abbas, she brokered an agreement that led to the opening of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. There were also other steps meant to ease the pressure on the daily life of Palestinians.
Now, there is a sometimes chaotic situation at Rafah and that, together with the continuing rocket attacks from Gaza, could very easily allow the situation to slide backwards, losing what little forward momentum there was. What Mr. Bush, Secretary Rice and the leaders about to be elected by both Israelis and Palestinians need to worry about is how to prevent an already-unsettled situation from turning into a downward spiral.
Charles M. Wolfson