Duff diplomacy

The US secretary of state's dash around the Middle East has failed to patch up a foreign policy in tatters.

by Simon Tisdall - Nov 5, 2007

Condoleezza Rice keeps pretty chirpy, but it was a gloomy weekend for US power and interests in the Middle East. Every way she looked during a flying visit to the region, hopes of progress turned to dust in her hands. From Pakistan to the occupied Palestinian territories, there is a sense of imminent unravelling born of misjudgment and long-term neglect.

President-General Pervez Musharraf's "second coup" was a personal rebuff for the US secretary of state. Whatever his other failings, the crisply-pressed Pakistani leader is a gentleman of the English colonial school. But good manners did not prevent him rejecting Ms Rice's latest calls for restraint - and then ignoring her frantic telephone calls.

Gen Musharraf's calculation that the White House and Pentagon will tacitly go along with his putsch is probably correct in the short term. As always his fealty, however conditional, to the "global war on terror" comes first. Ms Rice is reduced to hoping the emergency measures will be short-lived and elections will still go ahead soon.

But US and Pakistani analysts suggest the democracy-security trade-off that has kept Gen Musharraf in power since 9/11 cannot be sustained for much longer. If prolonged civil strife ensues, as some predict, the Bush administration and its British sidekicks will be blamed for not doing more, earlier, to encourage consensual, peaceful reform while it was still attainable.

Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, her power-sharing plans disrupted, may now be obliged to campaign all-out against the military regime. The ensuing confrontation could be unpredictable and bloody both for her and the general. From the US point of view, various unfolding scenarios, including Gen Musharraf's fall, point towards the same uncomfortable question: who lost Pakistan?

Ms Rice's weekend firefighting expedition to Istanbul was similarly uninspired. The part aim was to furnish Turkey with a good, publicly acceptable reason not to invade northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) militants - something Ankara has been demanding from Washington for at least two years.

The talks preceded today's "showdown" meeting - as Turkish media portray it - between Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and President Bush in Washington.

In the event Ms Rice appears to have tabled little of substance beyond enhanced intelligence-sharing. Asked what, if any, effective action was planned, including mooted US military moves against the PKK, she neatly explained Washington's dilemma while avoiding giving an answer.

"Effective action means you're actually trying to deal with the infrastructure of terrorism. But you want to do this in a way that doesn't compromise our other major goal, a unified, secure and stable Iraq," Ms Rice said. That suggested little would change. The Turks were predictably unimpressed - and may take matters into their own hands. "It has been a meeting with no resolution," a Turkish diplomat said. "There have been no tangible steps offered to us."

Ms Rice's Israel stop-over on Saturday was unproductive, too, casting further doubt on the usefulness of the US-promoted peace conference, vaguely scheduled for Annapolis, Maryland, either this month or next.

Ms Rice said the parties - principally, Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas - were still working on "ideas". No agreement has been reached, no final document has been completed and no invitations have yet been issued. Discouraged by this last-minute scramble and lack of a substantive agenda, leading Arab states such as Saudi Arabia warn they may not attend.

"I suspect this will not be the last effort that I will have to make to prepare the meeting ... this is a very delicate time," said a cheerful Ms Rice, whose frequent flier miles are beginning to rival Warren Christopher. "They [the parties] are coming to the realisation ... that Annapolis is an event but it's not the only event. There has to be a day after."

This rather obvious effort to downplay expectations suggested the Bush administration, after largely ignoring the Palestinian issue for six years, was losing confidence in its own project.

As if this display of duff diplomacy were not enough, Ms Rice also found time for a row with Walid al-Moallem, Syria's foreign minister, on the Istanbul sidelines. The US, she said, would not tolerate outside interference in Lebanon's delayed presidential election.

Neither would Syria, Mr al-Moallem waspishly retorted. "Condoleezza Rice speaks about Lebanon as if it is an American state," said Syria's state-run Tishrin newspaper.

Virtually lost amid all the blather and blunder was the original purpose of Ms Rice's visit: a discussion with Iraq's neighbours on how best to support Baghdad's weak, divided but ostensibly democratic government.

The meeting duly went ahead. But like the rest of Ms Rice's long weekend in the Middle East, its concrete achievements do not take long to list ...