This Summit Is Make Or Break

Presidential summits, by their very nature, are always high-risk, high-reward events. Next week’s gathering at Camp David will be no exception.

President Clinton obviously felt he had no other choice. "I have concluded that this is the best way, indeed it is the only way, to move forward," said Mr. Clinton in announcing the summit.

The U.S.-brokered diplomatic effort, in effect, left President Clinton with two choices: Go for a deal and risk failure or leave office in six months without having taken his final shot.

One senior administration official noted that lower level negotiators, including Secretary of State Albright, had taken things as far as they could. "Part of the logic of this [decision] is not to miss the opportunity that exists because we didn’t take it to this next step," said the senior official.

There are some analysts who think going to a summit without a pretty good chance to get a deal is a mistake. Peter Rodman, a former member of the National Security Council staff and a long-time analyst of middle east negotiations, now at The Nixon Center, says "summits are very risky." Moreover, Rodman notes "the world will not stop on Jan. 20th" when President Clinton leaves office. Presidents of both parties have "picked up the baton" of Middle East negotiations since the first Camp David Summit in 1978, says Rodman.

President Clinton may not have come into office with much foreign policy experience, but seven-and-a-half years later he has mastered the details of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, according to those who have observed him in negotiations. Mr. Clinton has also built a personal rapport with both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"There’s a kind of cache in the credibility that is built up," says the senior administration official who briefed reporters after Mr. Clinton’s announcement, and "it’s made easier because of the longevity in office and the long association with the issues. I think that’s the most important point here."

So much for the risks President Clinton is taking. They pale in comparison to those facing both Arafat and Barak.

Arafat is "very nervous" about coming to Camp David, says a former U.S. diplomat based in the Middle East, because "he thinks both the Israelis and the Americans will squeeze him."

For Barak, the closer he gets to a summit which he’s been pushing for, the more fragile his government appears. Several parties of his coalition are threatening to leave the government because of Barak’s peace proposals. Israeli politics is known for its fractious tendencies, but in the final analysis there will be a popular referendum on any deal agreed to at Camp David.

The bottom line for both leaders is they have to sell any accord brokered at Camp David to their respective constituencies and neither is on firm ground.

While both sides see President Clinton as a sympathetic figure who knows the issues, according to the former U.S. diplomat, "neither is worried about his legacy." This only adds to Mr. Clinton’s challenge, which he was clear about when he announced the summit, "There are no easy answers and certainly no painless ones and therefore there is clearly no guarantee of success."

By Charles Wolfson
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