A Menacing Wind Is Blowing Our Way

In Africa, there is a hot, dry wind that rises out of the Sahara and blows across the Middle East panhandle. It is known as the Hamsin. This wind respects no borders and obeys no master. Its parched tongue licks the rooftops of Egyptian villages, whips along Israel’s coastal cities and roars into Lebanon. The wind is the voice of the desert. Its message to civilization: Beware. It is feared and hated by villagers and city dwellers alike. Its torments are legendary.

The U.S. ultimatum to Ariel Sharon’s government Tuesday was a wind shift unlike any that Israel has ever experienced. The rebuke nettled Israeli leaders who believed that Israel’s incursion into Palestinian areas was a justified act of self-defense. They had good reason to believe so.

A year of relentless Palestinian terror has pushed the pressure of the Middle East conflict beyond human endurance. The barometer finally shattered last week when Rehavam Zeevi, Israel’s minister of tourism, was assassinated in East Jerusalem. The encirclement of Palestinian cities by the Israeli military should then have been anticipated. No country can be expected to endure the continued slaughter of its citizens or the assassination of its leaders. World wars have started over less.

But these are not normal times. The U.S. is at war, and the primacy of that effort seems to override almost every other foreign policy concern. President Bush’s message to Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was therefore categorical: Your security interests are secondary to the needs of this war. Pull out of Palestinian areas or risk isolation.

Supporters of a more balanced U.S. approach to the Middle East conflict may applaud Bush’s stance. Indeed, somewhere there are editorialists already celebrating Israel’s comeuppance. But viewed from a historical perspective, Bush’s actions are disastrous; there has not been a greater failure of U.S. strategic thinking since President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1965 decision to escalate hostilities in Vietnam.

A war waged over three continents and often fought covertly requires a strategic plan enjoining allies whose reliability and loyalty cannot be questioned. But between the Black Sea and India, the United States has only one such ally: Israel. Saudi Arabia, which may have once qualified for that role, has stymied any attempt by the FBI to place traces on the eight known hijackers who hailed from that country, and there are increasingly disturbing signs of the Saudi royal family’s having connections with Osama bin Laden. Pakistan, another candidate, is at best a short-term ally, its Muslim population restive and resistant to a war against co-religionists.

From the Palestinian Authority, the United States cannot expect much more. Its constituency seethes with anti-American sentiment. Both of the major terrorist groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have extensive operations in the United States and draw significant financial support from this country.

Finally there is Yasser Arafat himself. The late King Hussein of Jordan was fond of describing the Palestinian leader as a man who never came to a bridge he couldn’t double-cross. The brutal truth of that assessment has been on display for eight years. Arafat consistently breaks every agreement he signs and among his own people has not wasted a day promoting the idea of peaceful coexistence with Israel. For 40 years, he has been the central destabilizing force in the region, fomenting war, rebellion and terror in first Jordan, then Lebanon and now Israel. Placing faith in such a man to either combat terrorism or make peace is much like asking a burglar caught thieving in a jewelry shop to now become its manager.

There can be little doubt of Israel’s importance to the United States’ long-term strategic goals of combating international terrorism. Israel’s superbly trained army, its sophisticated intelligence-gathering services and its highly developed research facilities all offer irreplaceable assets for the U.S. war effort. Yet the Bush administration must understand that by condemning Israel’s counterterror policies, it can only encourage further terrorism. By appeasing Arab demands for evenhandedness, it tacitly provides terrorism with the diplomatic cover it craves. By isolating Israel, it rends the fabric of its own coalition, handicapping efforts toward a successful prosecution of the war.

Terror will be defeated only by unrelenting military and diplomatic pressure on the countries that benefit from it most. But make no mistake. In forming its coalition, the United States is attempting to harness another hot, dry wind loaded with menace that one day may blow back against it.