U.S. PURSUES ISRAELI CONNECTION ANEW AS KEY TO MIDEAST PEACE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302450018-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2012
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: November 22, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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WASHINGTON POST
22 November 1983
U.S. Pursues Israeli Connection Anew
as Key to Mideast Peace
By John M. Goshko
Washington Post Staff Writer
No region has confronted Presi-
dent Reagan with more frustrations
than the Middle East, where U.S.
policy over the past three years has
lurched from initial wheel-spinning
through a major peace initiative that
went awry to deepening involvement
in a Lebanese civil war where the
toll of U.S. Marine deaths has raised
fears about a "new Vietnam."
Now the administration is prepar-
ing to try again with a new policy
approach centered on the U.S.-1s-
raeli relationship, hoping that it will
lead to breakthroughs in three inter-
related, top-priority areas: ending
bloodshed in Lebanon, resolving the
Arab-Israeli conflict and safeguard-
ing the vital oil supplies of the Per-
sian Gulf.
Its broad outlines, as described by
a number of senior administration
officials, envision recasting the rela-
tionship in ways that could make Is-
rael an unofficial partner of the
United States by greatly increasing
American aid and strategic cooper-
ation with the Jewish state. This co-
operation would not be codified by
formal treaties, but it would make
clear to adversaries like Syria, and
its Soviet backers, that the two
countries have a confluence of inter- I
ests and are prepared to collaborate
in safeguarding them.
The objective, according to the of-
ficials, is to give Israel a long-term
sense of security about the perma-
nence of U.S. support and to immu-
nize the relationship from stresses
that have characterized it in the re-
cent past.
The new policy is largely the work
of Secretary of State George P.
Shultz, and it represents what seems
outwardly like .an about-face for
Shultz, whose earlier service as pres-
ident of Bechtel, an international
construction firm with close ties to
Saudi Arabia, originally led some to
expect him to turn U.S. policy onto a
pro-Arab course.
When Reagan was campaigning
for president in 1980, he made a
speech to the B'nai B'rith whose
strongly pro-Israeli overtones so
upset Shultz that he is known to
have told close friends that he did
not see how he could serve in an ad-
ministration whose Mideast policy he disagr,eed with
so strongly.
More ironic, according to senior administration
sources. 4n June, 1982, at the height of Israel's invasion
of Lebanon, Shultz, who was leaving on a trip abroad,
telephoned William P. Clark, then Reagan's White
House foreign policy adviser, to complain that the ad-
ministration was not doing enough to restrain Israel.
Because of this telephone call, Clark was aware of
Shultz's views and his whereabouts when Reagan's
first secretary of state, Alexander M. Haig Jr., sudden-
ly resigned, partly due to disagreement over U.S. pos-
ture toward the Israeli invasion.
Since taking office. Shultz. in the view even of the
Israelis. has followed a scrupulously evenhanded ap-
proach in dealing with both sides in the Arab-Israeli
dispute. Administration sources say his present advo-
cacy of closer ties with Israel results from frustration
over U.S. failure to win Syria's cooperation in Lebanon
and from his growing conviction that a restructured
relationship with Israel eventually might make that
nation more amenable to resolving the Palestinian
problem, which Shultz regards as the root cause of
Mideast tensions.
This latest approach is in an early stage, and its
final shape will depend heavily on the outcome of con-
tinuing disagreements between Reagan's most senior
advisers and of visits here by Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir next week and Lebanese President
Amin Gemayel a few days later.
But the United States hopes that Israel will recip-
rocate by showing greater flexibility toward American
dealings with the Arab world, first in achieving a Leb-
anon solution that will permit withdrawal of the Ma-
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rifles and then on broader issues- like defending the
Gulf. where U.S. officials are increasingly concerned
that escalation of the Iran-Iraq war could spill over
and affect oil production and shipping.
specifically, that would mean Israeli concessions
in Lebanon to help Gemayel consolidate his au-
thority over that divided country and make
Syria more amenable to cooperating in the with- '
drawal of foreign forces. In the longer. run, it would ,
require a lessening of Israeli hostility toward U.S. arms ,
supply arrangements with moderate Arab states like
Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which are seen by Washing-
ton as bulwarks against the spread of radical influence
in the Gulf.
Even the strongest advocates of this new approach
acknowledge that, given the missionary work required
to overcome the suspicions of Israel and the Arabs, it
probably can be implemented only in gradual stages.
Still, they contend, it offers the best hope of getting
away from what one calls "the reactive, event-oriented
kind of policy swings that frequently made us look like
we're riding a roller coaster."
These erratic ups and downs have been most evi-
dent in the 14 months since Sept. 1, 1982, when Rea-
gan 'made what was perhaps his most innovative for-
eign policy move. He announced an ambitious plan for
ending three decades of hostility between Israel and
the Arab world by giving the Palestinian-inhabited
West Bank and Gaza Strip independence "in associ-
ation with Jordan."
But the surge of optimism quickly evaporated when
the administration failed to win Arab or Israeli back-
ing and was forced instead to give priority attention to
the even more urgent 'situation in Lebanon, where a
single bomb attack on Oct. 23 took the lives of 239
American troops.
In the process, Reagan, who had hoped to play the
role of peacemaker for the entire Middle East, has had
to justify continued U.S. involvement in Lebanon to a
suspicious Congress and a worried public.
For a president generally believed to be on the verge
of launching a reelection bid, it is not a comfortable
situation. Lebanon, with its potential for holding the
Marines hostage to prolonged violence that will cost
more American lives, looms as a major issue in next
year's campaign; and Reagan's advisers are keenly
aware that, for political and diplomatic reasons, the
administration must prove that its investment there is
justified.
Reagan has to find a way to prevent a Syrian take-
over of Lebanon without keeping the Marines bogged
down there indefinitely. His earlier attempts to do that
by relying on moderate Arab help, while holding Israel
at arms length, have failed; and in turning to the idea ,
that Israel can help resolve the Lebanon puzzle, the
administration is using what one official candidly ac-
knowledged "might well be the last shot in our locker."
"We've learned that 21/2 years of turmoil and dis-
tance in our relations with Israel hasn't helped our
ability to influence events in the Arab world," he said.
"Similarly, we've found that when Israel is unsure of
itself and the steadfastness of the U.S. commitment to
it, our ability to act effectively in the Middle East is
lessened.
"We need to manage our relations so that they're
not disrupted by short-term, reactive disputes. We
want Israel to feel sufficiently secure and confident
about the U.S. tie so that it will cooperate in making it
possible for the United States to act as an arbitrator or
mediator both in the disputes between radical and
moderate Arab states and between the Arabs and Is-
rael."
It is a balancing act that the United States has
never managed successfully during the 35 years of the
Arab-Israeli conflict ? ?
Reagan took office in January, 1981, as the long
ordeal of the Iranian hostage crisis was ending with the
release of 52 Americans after 444 days of captivity in
Tehran. The trauma of Iran was to influence heavily
the thinking of the new administration toward the
Middle East.
Reagan's Democratic predecessor, Jimmy Carter,
had scored a historic breakthrough with the 1978
Camp David summit that led to the Egyptian-Israeli
peace treaty and the return of the Sinai Peninsula to
Egypt. But the Camp David process lost its momen-
tum when its planned next-stage talks between Israel
and Egypt?on the future status of the occupied West
Bank and Gaza Strip?bogged down.
The outbreak of the Iranian hostage crisis in No-
vember, 1979, followed a few weeks later by the Soviet
invasion of neighboring Afghanistan, shifted the atten-
tion of U.S. policy-makers from the Arab-Israeli sit-
uation toward the problems of security for the Persian
Gulf, which is the oil lifeline for western Europe.and
Japan.
That concern was shared by Reagan, with his
strongly ideological views about checking Soviet pres-
sures on areas vital to U.S. interests, and by Haig, a
former general with a tendency to view foreign policy
in strategic terms. As a result, the new administration,
believing that there was little immediate prospect of
breaking the Camp David stalemate, put its emphasis
on protecting the Gulf oil-producing states against in-
ternal threats from radical Islamic fundamentalists
and external pressures from the Soviet Union.
Haig proposed a "consensus of strategic concerns"
that would enlist friendly Middle Eastern states in a
series of bilateral military ventures with the United
States that collectively would form a military shield for
the region.
The problem, as Haig was to learn when he visited
Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in April, 1981,
was that the Arab countries were reluctant to embrace
such schemes publicly. Some deals were struck with
Arab governments, but they had to be pursued mostly
in a cautious, almost covert fashion that had a built-in
notential for boomeranging.
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That was made clear by the recent furor over public
disclosure of one idea that grew out of the "strategic
consensus" concept?the plan for the United States to
train and equip a Jordanian strike force that could ,
intervene in Gulf states if they came under attack. '
After it became known that the administration had
tried to hide the funds in a secret section of the de-
fense authorization bill, outraged reaction from sup-
porters of Israel and members of Congress caused the
project to be shelved.
*nother problem was posed by Israel, where ,
the government of then-prime minister
Menachem Begin welcomed the "strategic
consensus" idea as a way of tying itself more
closely to the United States militarily. However, Is-
rael's enthusiasm was not matched by the Defense De-
partment, which believed that it would make Arab
cooperation even more difficult to obtain; and U.S.
reluctance to match Begin's eagerness helped to fuel
the strains then starting to affect U.S.-Israeli relations.
These strains flowed primarily from what Washing-
ton regarded as the overly bellicose attitudes and ac-
tions of the Begin government. Throughout 1981, the
U.S.-Israeli "special relationship" was buffeted by an
almost continuous chain of incidents. 1
They included Israel's bombing of Iraq's nuclear
reactor, a retaliatory U.S. delay in delivering F16 jet
fighters to Israel, an increasing Israeli threat of mili-
tary action against the Palestine Liberation Organiza-
tion and. Syrian forces in Lebanon and, most acrimo-
nious of all. Israel's insistence on forcing Reagan. to
spend inordinate amounts of time and political capital
in an uphill but ultimately successful battle to prevent
Congress from blocking the sale of advanced warning
and control system (AWACS) radar surveillance planes
and equipment to Saudi Arabia.
Despite these tensions, the two governments
reached an accord calling for some joint maneuvers,
stockpiling of medical equipment in Israel for the U.S.
Rapid Deployment Force and limited joint security
planning. Then, in December, 1981, the Begin govern-
ment. brushing aside U.S. objections, annexed the
Golan Heights, which Israel had captured from Syria
in 1968, and the administration retaliated by scrapping
the agreement.
That marked the symbolic end of "strategic con-
sensus" as the centerpiece of Reagan's Mideast
policy, and the administration ended its first
year with its Mideast policies bogged down in
inertia.
Then came June 6, 1982, when the Israeli army in-
vaded Lebanon and quickly drove to the outskirts of
Beirut in an effort to destroy the PLO presence in that
country. Already strained U.S.-Israeli relations
plunged to their lowest point ever as Reagan, outraged
by the bombings of Beirut and the heavy civilian ca-
sualties, put pressure on Begin bra cease-fire..
-
It took most of the summer before Reagan's special
envoy, Philip C. Habib, was able to work out a plan for
the departure of PLO fighters from Beirut. In the
meantime, Shultz had taken office with an urgent
mandate from Reagan to find a comprehensive new
strategy for the ;egion.
The result was, the Sept. 1 speech in which Reagan
proposed that Palestinian aspirations for a homeland
be satisfied by associating the West Bank and Gaza
Strip with Jordan in exchange for Arab recognition of
Israel. But the boldness of that move quickly gave way
to the torturous, slogging process of coming to grips
with what Shultz called "the separate but parallel
track? of ending the conflict- in Lebanon and turning
the wider Reagan initiative into reality.
, And the secretary was soon to learn that high hopes
and earnest intentions were insufficient to cut through
the ingrained hostilities of the Middle East. Within
eight months after the president put forward his peace ,
plan, it fell casualty to these tensions.
Shultz's strategy was predicated on the assumption
that Jordan's King Hussein-could be enticed into a
broadened peace process with a mandate from the
Arab world to act as spokesman for the Palestinians.
The United States reasoned that if Hussein came for-
ward, Begin, despite his rejection of the plan, would be
forced to follow; and with all the parties at the nego-
tiating table', it then would be possible to force them to '
confront peace issues in a serious fashion.
That hope foundered last April, when PLO Chair-
man Yassir Arafat, under pressure from Syria and res-
tive PLO elements, failed to annoint Hussein as rep-
resentative of the Palestinians. The king backed away
from the process.
In the meantime, the administration was encoun-
tering similarly tough going on the even more urgent
Lebanon front. Beginning with a Marine force. that
went to Lebanon in August, 1982, to join French and
Italian troops in overseeing the PLO evacuation, the
United States became increasingly engaged, step by
step, over the ensuing 15 months in the religious and
political strife there.
The multinational force was withdrawn in Septem-
ber, 1982, after the PLO's departure. But a few days
later, it had to be sent back in the wake of the mas-
sacre of Palestinian civilians in Beirut by Lebanese
Christian militiamen.
Since then, Marines participating in the force have
become the flesh-and-blood symbol of a U.S. commit-
ment to help Gemayel's embattled government assert
its authority over the country. That involves two
things: inducing Syria and Israel to withdraw their
forces from Lebanon and arranging a peace between
Gemayel and the Syrian-supported Druze and Moslem
factions fighting against his predominantly Christian
government.
Hopes for a breakthrough were stirred last May,
when Shultz, in a virtuoso display of shuttle diploma-
cy, helped to arrange a peace agreement between Israel
and Lebanon. However, the May 17 accord since has
been virtually scuttled by Syria's refusal to agree to a
parallel pullout.
Instead, the United States has been facing a steadily
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deteriorating situation. Israel withdrew its forces from
the Beirut area and redeployed them in southern Leb-
anon. Syria then used the resulting vaccuum to incite
Druze and Moslem militias into new fighting that
raged through Beirut for most of September, bringing
the Marines and French forces under attack and forc-
ing the United States to respond with massive firepow-
er from a heavily reinforced naval task force positioned
off the Lebanese coast.
Another special U.S. envoy, Robert C. McFarlane, ?
who since has become Reagan's national security af-
fairs adviser, finally won a cease-fire and talks in Ge-
neva between Gemayel and his opponents about re-
vised power-sharing arrangements. But the Oct. 23
bomb attacks against the Marines and French forces:
have underscored the urgency of Reagan's need to finch
a new approach.
Against this background Shultz introduced into
ministration deliberations a detailed proposal prepared
by one of his policy planners, Peter Rodman, calling
for the United States to make greater use of the Israeli'
factor in the Middle East equation.
The idea is known to have been ()noosed by Defense
Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, a former Shultz col-
league at Bechtel. Weinberger was backed by the Joint
Lhiefs of Staff and CIA Director William J. Casey.
They raised anew the objection that such a move
would be perceived as a partisan tilt toward Israel and
upset the balance of U.S.-Arab relations.
However, after considerable debate, Reagan came
down, at least tentatively, on Shultz's side. Earlier this
? month, Lawrence S. Eagleburger, undersecretary of
state for political affairs, traveled to Jerusalem to in-
vite Shamir, who succeeded Begin last month, to come
here and explore the possibilities with Reagan arid..
Shultz.
When Shamir and Defense Minister Moshe Arens,
sit down with Reagan at the White House next week,,
U.S. officials say, the administration hopes to get a,
clearer picture of how far the Israelis are prepared to
travel along the "two-way street" envisioned by Shultz.
The officials said there is little doubt about Sha-.
mir's appetite for the incentives suggested?reactiva-
tion of the joint military ventures dropped after the
Golan Heights dispute as well as help for Israel's hard-
pressed economy by converting a greater share of U.S3
military aid loans into grants that do not have to be,
repaid.
The big question is whether Shamir will he willing
to pay the price that the United States intends to ask
of him. U.S. officials want an informal process of con-
sultation and coordination with Israel that will put
Syrian President Hafez Assad on notice that the two
countries intend to stand fast against Syrian attempts
to control Lebanon and that Syria's only hope of sat-
isfying its aspirations there lies in the give and take of I
negotiation.
Those are aims with which Shamir is likely to
agree. Less clear is how he will react to U.S.
suggestions that Israel start thinking about
making more political concessions in Lebanon, ,
including further withdrawals of its forces and mod-
ification of the May 17 Israel-Lebanon agreement to
eliminate those features that are a major source of con-
tention between Gemayel and his domestic opponents.
Looking beyond Lebanon, the administration will
try to convince Shamir to ease Israel's practice of using
its political clout in Congress to oppose U.S. arms re-
lationships with moderate Arab states. In particular;
the administration is known to be thinking about Jor-
dan. Hussein is under heavy pressure from his armed
forces to obtain. advanced American aircraft and mo-
bile air-defense missiles. But Congress thus far has;
been unwilling to approve the sale of these items; and
the administration fears that a prolonged stalemate
could undermine Hussein's position with his military.
Since Shamir and Arens are heirs to Begin's hard-'
line approach to dealing with the Arabs, U.S. officials I
acknowledge that it won't be easy to convince him that
the administration's requests are in Israel's interest: At ,
best, one official said, "this upcoming meeting prob. .
ably won't get beyond some attempts to soften them
up and see whether they're at least willing to think
about what we're proposing. Then we'll see whether
there's something that's worth pursuing further."
In short, the administration is hoping that, while
many points of disagreement with Israel will remain,
they can be set aside to work on a restructured U.S.-Is-
raeli relationship. Agreement would cement Israel's
confidence in the U.S. support on which its security
ultimately depends, while it would help the United
States extricate itself from Lebanon and go on to pur-
sue other American interests in the region.
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