Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Jerusalem on Monday in the wake of the Mecca accord and the formation of a Palestinian unity government. Is progress possible?
Writing in the February 15 Financial Times (full text available here), National Interest editor Nikolas Gvosdev and TNI contributing editor Ray Takeyh argued:
The Mecca accords between Fatah and Hamas did nothing to advance the peace process. Meanwhile, Cairo is not willing or even capable of imposing a solution on the Palestinian government barring significant territorial concessions from Israel. . . .
To extricate itself from its predicament, America must make some difficult decisions, beginning with Iraq. The surge of American troops with their commitment to disarm the Shia militias will not just exacerbate the existing sectarian conflict in that country but further estrange the Shia majority-without any corresponding shift in the attitudes of the Sunni minority toward the US. . . .
As Washington wrestles with the means of stabilising Iraq, it must look beyond retrogressive shibboleths for a new way of approaching Shia actors and states that can no longer be contained or easily submerged under Sunni power. It must accept that the result of political reform-in places such as Iraq, the Gulf emirates and Lebanon-will be the empowerment of governments much less interested in pursuing America's strategic agenda. It may be too much to expect new allies for the US, but neutrality is far better than active opposition.
