Opinion

HIGH HOPES, LOW EXPECTATIONS

LISTENING to President Bush deliver his heartfelt statement on the Middle East, I felt weathered and old. This is a president I have come to admire enormously, a man who has begun to seem a great wartime president, and I felt protective toward him. I do not want to see him embarrassed by liars, killers or fools.

I want our president’s new initiative to succeed, as do all sensible men and women. Who, except terrorists and Middle Eastern despots, would not want to see peace between Israel and the Palestinians? But I could not break free of my cynicism about Secretary of State Colin Powell’s prospects in a region that devours good intentions without a trace.

I hope, unreservedly, that the Bush administration will achieve what all others have failed to do. But I cannot help believing that, at most, we will see a truce disguised as a prelude to peace, whose ultimate effect is to let surrounded terrorists survive to kill another day.

I could not help feeling that, once again, a president had been led down the primrose path by those whose maps of ideas are as useless as they are out of date. The traditional wisdom is that America must contribute to a just peace, but I am wary of a false peace without justice – especially justice meted out to terrorists.

I see new motion, but not new thinking. Is the Middle East a better place, after all our meddling? Have we prevented some fatal tragedy, or only prolonged the patient’s agonies? What if there is no solution, only the willingness of enemies to endure?

President Bush spoke inspirationally and, no doubt, sincerely. He is a man who believes in possibilities – a man possessed of a distinctly Protestant temperament, almost an archetype. But idealists fail when they underestimate the darkness in the human heart. And the Middle East, not Joseph Conrad’s Congo, is the true heart of darkness.

I’m not so concerned that our president is taking a risk on a ferociously-difficult, if not impossible mission – after all, we’re better off with a president willing to lead and take risks in a good cause than with one who relies on polls and worries only about his image.

But I do worry that President Bush is undercutting his credibility by avoiding the choice he posed to the rest of the world: You are either for us in the fight against terrorism, or you are against us. In the Middle East, at least, President Bush seems willing to compromise with terror, to want to have it both ways.

Consider these dangers:

By intervening now and interrupting Israel’s counter-offensive before it can root out the key terrorists and their sympathizers – surrounded, at present – President Bush is unintentionally protecting terrorists.

Any compromise forced on Israel, no matter how justified it may appear in the greater scheme of things, appears to reward the suicide bombers and their infernal masters. Expect more suicide bombings.

American intervention appears to bow to the will of the frankly-impotent “Arab Street.” No matter what we believe, the populations of the Arab states will convince themselves that their demonstrations frightened the United States into cracking down on Israel. Expect more demonstrations.

Nothing Israel can give up will ever satisfy the Arab hardliners. Immediately after the president’s generous speech, Palestinian spokesmen criticized it for not going far enough and for implying that Yasser Arafat is imperfect. The Arabs in positions of authority are bullies to a man, and bullies can never be satisfied through appeasement.

With the best of intentions, our interference may only prolong the current terrorist campaign, while doing even more to convince the Arabs that we are Israel’s master – and that we are, indeed, to blame for Israel’s successes. You cannot make friends through demonstrations of weakness, but that has been our consistent policy in the Middle East, no matter which political party is in the White House.

I hope that I am wrong and that lasting good will come of this new initiative. But even if it fails, an unexpected advantage may emerge, just as the paradox of the tragedy of Sept. 11 was that the terror attacks unified and strengthened America.

Should Secretary Powell fail – and failure may not be evident immediately – we may at last see a bit of realism in the Powell State Department, which consistently has been the weak link in our immediate struggle against global terrorism and in our long-term need to be open to strategic change.

It may do Secretary Powell good to negotiate firsthand with Yasser Arafat, to return to Washington with a piece of paper guaranteeing peace in our time, then to learn personally how meaningless a terrorist’s promises are.

Perhaps President Bush, who clearly has been influenced by Arab potentates and dictators he persists in calling our friends, will begin to see at last how deceitful and hate-steeped their regimes and populations really are.

Finally, our president is absolutely correct in insisting on dignity for the average Palestinian. But he needs to address his message first to the corrupt, brutal, dictatorial Palestinian terrorists and warlords who have been the primary enemies of the emergence of a decent, rule-of-law Palestinian state. The crassness of a young Israeli soldier at a checkpoint is nothing compared to the theft of hope and dreams committed against their own people by Palestinian demagogues.

Perhaps I’ve been around too long and have grown too cynical. Maybe it’s possible to have seen too much of the world – at over 50 countries and counting, it’s easy to fall into a weary, “Round up the usual suspects” mentality. But I do have a few unshakeable beliefs I’ve developed over the years:

You cannot compromise with evil.

Concessions to bullies are always counterproductive.

And world opinion isn’t worth a damn.

I join my fellow Americans in wishing Colin Powell bon voyage.

Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer and the author of the forthcoming “Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World.”