Why Mideast leaders travel to US in succession

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, April 09, 2004

Why Mideast leaders travel to US in succession

US President George W. Bush will have a busy agenda as from April 12 when leaders of Egypt, Israel and Jordan follow each other's heels to visit the United States at his invitation.

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US President George W. Bush will have a busy agenda as from April 12 when leaders of Egypt, Israel and Jordan follow each other's heels to visit the United States at his invitation.

According to the White House, Bush will receive Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at his private ranch in Crawford, Texas, on April 12, and then meet Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on April 14 and King of Jordan Abdullah on April 21 separately, both at the White House.

The visits, arranged in a tight timeframe of less than 10 days, are shrouded by mounting tensions in the Middle East, which were caused by Israeli assassination of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and escalated by Sharon's repeated threats to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's life.

Analysts here believe that how to deal with the chaotic situation in the Middle East and salvage the stalled peace process will top the agenda for the meetings between Bush and his guests.

The discussions are expected to focus on the stalled Middle East roadmap peace plan which calls for a two-state solution to the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The roadmap, developed by the United Nations, Russia, the European Union and the United States or the Middle East quartet, was launched in June last year. But efforts to implement the peace plan were soon deadlocked due to differences between the parties concerned.

As for Prime Minister Sharon, a frequent visitor to the White House, his coming trip may be used to seek Bush's blessing or support for a unilateral plan to separate Israel from the Palestinians, including a full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

The United States has been hesitate to embrace the plan put forward by Sharon in December because it may jeopardize the roadmap peace plan supported by Washington and preempt a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the future.

However, Sharon's staunch posture on his separation plan has forced the White House to rethink its position. There are reports that the United States and Israel are close to reaching an understanding over the plan after two visits to the Middle East bya team of senior US officials in the past two months.

Among the three Middle East leaders, President Mubarak is the only one who is awarded the privilege to be Bush's guest at his private ranch. The special treatment, however, may well indicate more trouble than intimacy in US-Egyptian relations, analysts say.

Without consultations with the Middle East countries, Washington leaked a draft version of a so-called Greater Middle East Initiative in February as a trial balloon before formally launching the initiative at the coming Group of Eight summit to be held in June in Sea Island, Georgia of the United States.

Many analysts believe that the plan is designed to advance the strategic interests of the United States in the Greater Middle East, which refers to the Arab world plus Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and Israel, under the pretext of promoting democracy and reform in the region.

The trial balloon drew an outcry from several Arab nations including US allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which strongly oppose the imposition of an outside reform agenda on the region and insist that the top priority should be the pursuit of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But other Arab countries, such as Jordan and Bahrain, adopt a favorable view of the US initiative and urge Arab nations to work out a reform plan.

The difference among the Arab nations has so far prevented them from coming up with a common response to the US initiative, which led to the abrupt postponement of a scheduled summit of the Arab League last month.

As the Group of Eight summit approaches, Bush may use the visits of Mubarak and King Abdullah to seek consultations over the US initiative and make it acceptable to the Arab world.

Iraq and anti-terrorism could be high on the agenda for Bush's interaction with the Middle East leaders, especially at a time when the US-led coalition forces are battling spreading insurgency in Iraq.

The sharp deterioration of the security situation in Iraq has triggered a fierce debate in the United States over whether the administration should go forward with its plan to transfer sovereignty to Iraqis by June 30.

Bush, who is seeking a reelection in November, has vowed to stay the course, saying that his administration remains firm in implementing the plan as scheduled.

When he meets Mubarak and King Abdullah, both influential leaders in the Middle East, Bush may ask them to reiterate their support for the war on terror and rally behind him on the US plan to transfer power to Iraqis by June 30.

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