II. THE STEPS TO TAKE
A. STRATEGIC PRINCIPLES
In our view, three main principles must guide common Middle East policy.
1. Give the Israeli-Palestinian conflict priority
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict poisons the situation in the Middle East, but let us not be fooled. All sides manipulate it for foreign and domestic policy purposes. Nobody really cares about it. The Palestinians and Israelis are the only ones who suffer.
Everybody knows what must be done to conclude peace but the partners to sign it are missing.
The Western powers must focus their efforts on settling the conflict and making a stronger commitment without deviating from this important objective for the Palestinian people's survival and the Israelis' security.
That would not end all the conflicts under way but it would ease tensions and anti-Western resentment. Our own security is at stake.
2. Disconnect the treatment of conflicts from each other
Foreign policy is used for domestic purposes in the Middle East more than in any other part of the world. That is true in Iran. That is true in Israel. And that is true in many other States in the region, such as Syria or Iraq.
Tzipi Livni's and Ehud Barak's electoral concerns played a big part in the offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran's dictatorship stops at nothing, including Soviet-style false confessions, to show that the post-election unrest was fomented outside the country, pointing an accusing finger at Great Britain and the United States. In Syria, the Assads take a hard anti-Israeli and anti-Western line to muzzle the people, who suffer from the dictatorship and a controlled economic transition whose main beneficiaries are the members of the clan in power.
Everything seems interconnected in this context. The political players do all they can to increase the impression of confusion. Israel's prime minister tries to link progress on the Palestinian issue with settling the Iranian question, in other words stopping its nuclear program. Meanwhile, Iran's leaders stir up fears of an Israeli attack to step up repression and portray themselves as the only ones in the Muslim world really standing up to the West.
It is therefore imperative to disconnect conflicts from each other and to refuse, for example, to link advances on the Palestinian issue with the Iranian question.
3. Target diplomatic actions
Any Middle East foreign policy must avoid what Collège de France professor Henry Laurens calls "the perverse game of meddling and interference". Traditionally, the Middle East countries are inclined to request the intervention of an outside power capable of helping them solve domestic conflicts. In the 20 th century, a diplomatic settlement between London and Paris ended fighting between Christians and Druzes in Lebanon's mountains. But when outside powers become involved, local powers denounce their interference.
Furthermore, any Western initiative towards a Middle East country risks altering relations with the other governments. Until recently, closer ties with Syria displeased Saudi Arabia. Egypt feels that if Saudi Arabia becomes the main partner in settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict its leadership would be challenged. There is no shortage of examples.
It therefore seems desirable to limit diplomatic actions to what is strictly necessary, in other words to issues involving our security, our economy and the consolidation of bilateral relations with governments and civil society.
The conflict between Europe's and the Muslim countries' conception of human rights must be treated firmly but not condescendingly or aggressively. It is better to give persecuted human rights campaigners concrete assistance, grant them asylum and support the actions of the International Federation for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc. Words and especially deeds must strongly reaffirm equality between all human beings and respect for every individual's dignity.
B. ACTIONS TO CARRY OUT
The rapporteurs identified four major problems requiring swift action: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iranian nuclear program, Yemen and Iraq.
1. Guarantee the Palestinians' future and the State of Israel's existence while consolidating peace with Syria and Lebanon
The lack of negotiating partners complicates the present situation. The Palestinians are too divided and reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas seems unlikely. The Israelis think they do not need peace because their army dissuades all their neighbors and guarantees their security. Moreover, the full proportional voting system strips their leaders of the political clout necessary to make the concessions required in effective negotiations. The top priorities must be ensuring that the Palestinians have a single, legitimate representative capable of negotiating on their behalf and convincing the Israelis that a just and lasting peace is in their interests.
But that will not be enough. An honest broker is also necessary because the parties will not reach an agreement as long as the balance of power is so blatantly skewed and the willingness is not there. The situation already degenerated after UN resolution 181 in 1948 because the Security Council failed to follow up on the partition plan's consequences. In the absence of UN intervention, the United States and the European Union have the political and financial clout to be that honest broker if they act in concert.
Convincing Israel to accept the creation of a Palestinian State mainly depends on the United States, but the American president's ability to confront pro-Israeli lobbies in Congress dwindles as his popularity falls. Europe must pick up the baton and help the United States find the ways and means for a peaceful settlement of the conflict.
Until now the US administration has made ending settlement activity an indicator of Israel's sincerity when it says it wants peace. The European countries, including France, have backed that view by demanding a total settlement freeze from Benyamin Netanyahou. Paradoxically, that puts the Israeli prime minister is position of strength. He can exert a form of blackmail on his government's political survival: if political pressure is too strong, he would lose his narrow majority and it would be necessary to wait many long months to have an Israeli interlocutor again.
One possible way out of the deadlock would be to draw a clear border between Israel and the Palestinians, which would push the settlement issue into the background and force the settlers to chose whether they want to stay or go. It would reduce opposition. Settlers in territories destined to no longer be under Israeli authority could have the choice of leaving in return for financial aid or staying, keeping their Israeli citizenship in the future Palestinian State. A multinational force guaranteeing security could be considered. American think tanks have worked a lot on this issue and many solutions are conceivable.
However, drawing a border depends on negotiation and, therefore, a negotiator capable of speaking on behalf of all Palestinians. That is why the radical proposal of a pure and simple return to the 1967 borders, which Henry Siegman and the US/Middle East project group put forward, has a major advantage: it does not require a Palestinian negotiator or the evacuation of Israeli settlers because they would stay put under Palestinian sovereignty. Some American pro-Israeli lobbies, such as Abraham Foxman's Anti-Diffamation League, believe that proposal is worth considering. After all, why shouldn't the new Palestinian State include Jewish citizens?
Unfortunately, all the diplomats focus their attention on stopping the settlements. But a freeze would not create a Palestinian State. The US administration should pressure the Israeli government into lifting the Gaza blockade, which would enable the European Union to play its role with the Palestinians.
The formation of a Palestinian national unity government will not depend on reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. Egypt has done its utmost to achieve that goal but after the Gaza tragedy it was a mission impossible. In addition, Egypt has little influence over Hamas. Its failure not only deprives the Palestinians of representatives capable of negotiating, but also clouds the outlook for legislative and presidential elections in January 2010. Yet, failing reconciliation, the elections are indispensable for deciding between the two factions and naming negotiators.
That is where the European Union can put its financial aid to the Palestinian territories, Fatah on the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, into the balance, making elections a precondition for funding .
That requires mandating a European Union special envoy to the Middle East to talk to Hamas . In close connection with his or her US counterpart, George Mitchell, and of course the government of Israel, the special envoy could negotiate the lifting of the Gaza blockade in return for the setting up of a transitional Palestinian Authority in charge of organizing elections and choosing the voting method. It could also show the European countries that the reform of Fatah and the PLO decided at the Bethlehem congress in August 2009 is under way. Turkey and Syria can and must be associated with this process.
Together the United States and Europe must demand signs of peace from both parties. Those signs might not only be a total settlement freeze but also the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel and of Israeli and Palestinian prisoners held by Fatah and Hamas; an exchange between Gilad Shalit and Marwan Barghouti; an end to the expulsions of Jerusalem's Palestinians; and the complete removal of roadblocks on the West Bank. A deadline should be considered: the Israeli government promised to freeze settlements and evacuate unauthorized settles at Annapolis in 2007 and never followed through.
Settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all the more important because peace between Israel, Syria and Lebanon depends on it . The rapporteurs have come to the conclusion that there is no point in Syria and Israel resuming direct negotiations on handing over the Golan Heights as long as a viable Palestinian State does not exist. Likewise, it is useless to hope that Lebanon will achieve lasting stability without settling the issue of Palestinian refugees.
2. Prevent the bomb and avoid bombing in Iran
Since the elections, which were probably rigged, the regime has been drifting towards outright dictatorship. It has just shown its worst side: unstable, warmongering and paranoid. But since the end of the war with Iraq, Iran's policy has shifted away from exporting the Islamist Revolution and glossing over its Shiite identity to lead the Muslim and "disadvantaged" world. Iran has focused on its national interests and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is pursuing his forerunners' ultranationalist direction. His outrageous, populist outbursts are intended for his electorate. Iran needs to exaggerate the foreign threat in order to shift its people's attention away from its domestic problems.
No hardcore proof suggests Iran's nuclear program is military, but many clues point that way. The apparently civilian program probably includes a military option that the country's leaders have not chosen yet. If they do, Iran could have its first nuclear device by late 2010. But it would be a single, experimentally unvalidated device that could not be carried by a missile. Iran would not acquire a dissuasive nuclear force before 2015.
There are reasons to question whether a nuclear-armed Iran should be feared. Israel and the Western powers have atomic weapons. If a war breaks out, dissuasion would probably play as big a role as it did in the Cold War. Iran's leaders often unleash a barrage of anti-Western rhetoric but they have rational interests to defend. However, Ahmadinejad's reelection adds an additional factor of uncertainty.
The real threat to world peace would be the inevitable nuclearization of the Middle East, following in the footsteps of Israel and Iran. That is why everything must be done to prevent Iran's nuclear program from becoming military, if it is not already.
Iran probably believes that cultivating ambiguity puts it into a position of strength. If negotiations succeed, its leaders will have obtained economic and political advantages in return for giving up a virtual military program. If they fail and Iran is attacked, it will take on the victim role it likes so much to boost its popularity in the Muslim world.
One thing is sure: neither the West nor Israel will stop Iran's nuclear program by force. What has been built can be destroyed but what has been learned cannot be unlearned.
Can it be stopped by negotiation? There is reason to doubt it, considering the Europeans' long experience in the matter. There is a very simple reason for that: the present Iranian regime needs enemies to exist. Will détente follow?
Nevertheless, talks must be given one last chance and the US president's outstretched hand policy, which was not Europe's initial position, must be supported.
Germany, France and the United Kingdom, mandated by the entire Union, could start negotiating with Iran: they could offer Iran civilian nuclear cooperation and a dialogue on regional security in exchange for stopping uranium enrichment activities.
If the talks fail stronger sanctions should be considered, hopefully in association with China and Russia. The abandonment of the US anti-missile shield project in Poland and the Czech Republic is certainly a step in that direction.
At the same time, it would be desirable to promote the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East, similar to those in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, in the framework of a regional treaty including Israel 65 ( * ) . That is one of the most important aspects of a Middle East without nuclear weapons. Otherwise, the region's peoples will once again accuse of the West of a double standard.
3. Save the Yemeni State from failure to keep it from becoming Al Qaeda's next base
Little is heard about Yemen in the West, yet its strategic location at the crossroads of Africa and the Middle East is crucial. The peninsula's Arab States invested a lot there before giving up. An electronic wall on the border with Saudi Arabia is under construction.
Yemen is not yet a failed State but on its way to becoming one. The collapse of its economy, particularity of its geography with its high mountains and steep, unclimbable valleys, and weakness of its government, whose authority stretches no further than Sana'a, might make the country a new base for bin Laden's followers. Groups with links to Al Qaeda are active there and many young Europeans are enrolled in madrasas in northern Yemen. Nothing would be gained from winning the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan if it had to be fought all over again in Yemen.
Yemen must be saved from failure and anarchy, in its interest and in ours. An international conference on its future should take place as soon as possible.
4. Help Iraq rebuild its State
The improvement of security in Iraq remains shaky. The Iraqi State will suffer many setbacks before restoring the country's unity. The Kurds have not renounced Kirkuk, which is a sort of Jerusalem to them, but they do not plan to secede, if only because of how Turkey would react. In addition, peaceful solutions, such as a sui generis status, can be implemented.
The restoration of economic life will take even longer. Infrastructure that has been destroyed or left to deteriorate for 30 years must be rebuilt. Iraq could provide the financing if corruption did not skim off oil profits. In addition, the Iraqis must agree on the redistribution of oil revenues and on a legal framework attractive enough to draw foreign companies.
Europe can and must help Iraq find solutions to the water problem with its neighbors Turkey and Iran. The European Union could launch a diplomatic initiative towards Turkey as soon as possible if the European Commission agrees to consider the issue.
Free elections are not enough for Iraq's rebirth. It also needs an impartial State: civil servants, judges, administrators, managers, teachers, soldiers and police officers who put the country's interests above their own. Europe can help. France, which decided not to participate in the war, must increase its civil presence today.
* 65 Four regional treaties have established four nuclear-war-free zones: the 1967 Treaty of Tlateloco for Latin America and the Caribbean; 1985 Treaty of Rarotonga for the South Pacific; 1995 Treaty of Bangkok for Southeast Asia; and 1996 Treaty of Pelindaba for Africa.