[Marxism] Did Olmert order Bush to veto Rice-backed cease-fire plan?

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.juancole.com/2009/01/israeli-pm-ehud-olmert-claims-to-be.html
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Israeli PM Ehud Olmert Claims to be Able to Order Bush Around 

So outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was speaking in Ashkelon on
Monday, and he said the most amazing thing. The USG Open Source Center
translated the relevant passage from his speech, in which he claimed he had
the ability to control US foreign policy and summarily over-rule the
Secretary of State:


'"Olmert Says Israel Determined To Go On, Recalls Phone Talk on UNSC Vote
With Bush
Telephone report from Ashqelon by political correspondent Shmu'el Tal --
liveA
Voice of Israel Network B
Monday, January 12, 2009 . . .
Document Type: OSC Translated Text

[Olmert:] "It transpired all of a sudden that a vote would be held in 10
minutes' time. I tried to find President Bush, and I was told he was
attending an event in Philadelphia."

Cont'd




'I know that if somebody tried to find me on the phone right now, it would
have to be something unusual and extraordinary for them to say: Leave it all
and go to some room to talk to me. In this case, I said: I don't care, I
have to talk to him right now. 

He was taken off the podium and brought to a side room. I spoke with him; I
told him: You can't vote for this proposal. 

He said: Listen, I don't know, I didn't see, don't know what it says. 

I told him: I know, and you can't vote for it! 

He then instructed the secretary of state, and she did not vote for it. 

It was a proposal she had put together, one she formulated, one she
organized, one she maneuvered. It left her rather embarrassed, abstaining in
the vote on a proposal she herself had put together. That was why the French
and the Brits said she had pulled a fast one on them, she having been the
one to spur them to submit the proposals." '


Olmert's account cannot be accurate as to detail. Bush was not interrupted
during his speech in Philadelphia, and the speech was given many hours
before the UN vote. But that kind of discrepancy is easily resolved if we
want to believe that Olmert is telling the truth. When he called the White
House, he may have initially gotten a staffer who said something like, Bush
is away at Philadelphia for a speech. Olmert could have misunderstood the
staffer to say that Bush was still giving the speech.

But that Condi Rice worked hard to get that UN resolution and that the other
diplomats were shocked when she suddenly instructed Zalmay Khalilzad to vote
against it is well known and was reported in the Arabic press at the time.
Raghida Dergham wrote in the London-based pan-Arab daily, al-Hayat, on Jan.
10, 2009 (OSC trans.):

' French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner chaired the session, since his
country is the UNSC's chairman this month, which was attended by US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, British Foreign Secretary David
Miliband . . . [etc.] 

Rice surprised the meeting by abstaining from voting after the Americans had
left a clear impression during the negotiations of their intention to vote
in favour of the resolution. . . 

British diplomacy played a consensual and leading role which contributed to
breaking the cycle of delay and procrastination by French diplomacy.
Reporting on the penultimate session of the ministers, sources said Kouchner
tried to postpone the voting until today on the pretext that Presidents
Husni Mubarak and Nicola Sarkozy approved this delay but the Egyptian
foreign minister replied back immediately denying this was true about the
Arab stand. The sources said the Saudi foreign minister demanded that
Kouchner put his country's stand aside and respond to the demand to hold a
session for voting. The British foreign secretary was on the point of
presenting the consensual resolution regardless of the French and US stand.
Russia intervened at the last moments and told the Arab side it was ready to
participate with Britain in putting up the draft resolution officially for a
vote. US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad arrived suddenly at the meeting to
report his country's stand. . . ' 


So Dergham's account, gleaned from UN sources in New York, shows that Rice
had been more in favor of the cease-fire resolution than Bernard Kouchner of
France, who used his position as chair to attempt to delay it coming up for
a vote. You could imagine Olmert calling up Sarkozy and urging this delay.
But Kouchner could not stand against the combined pressure of Britain,
Russia and Saudi Arabia, and had to allow the vote to go forward. Then
everyone was surprised by Rice's about-face. And it was reported at the time
that she changed her mind after a phone call from Bush.

So the substance of Olmert's allegations are consistent with Dergham's
account, gleaned from interviews with eyewitnesses to the process among the
Arab participants: "Rice surprised the meeting . . ."

It is therefore reasonable to think that Olmert did talk to Bush last
Thursday, and that he did have Rice over-ruled. One can only imagine that he
had tried hard to dissuade Rice from participating in the drafting process
at all, and had tried to have her veto the resolution, in accordance with
standard US procedure of shielding Israel from the UNSC. She must have blown
him off or been evasive, alarming him that there would be a UN ceasefire
resolution before which Israel might have to bow. My own guess is that
Olmert had Bush tell her to veto it altogether, but you have to wonder
whether she and Khalilzad engaged in their own little final rebellion and so
just voted "present," which allowed the resolution to pass. (Olmert has
ignored it.)

Olmert reports that Bush had no idea what the substance of the resolution
was, and this anecdote is consistent with what we know about how this White
House has functioned. Bush admitted to Bob Woodward that an important
decision on sending some troops to Iraq had been made by National Security
Adviser Stephen Hadley and that Bush had not sat in on the relevant
meetings. So Rice was at the UN on her own, thinking she was a
plenipotentiary of Bush, and Olmert was annoyed at this attitude and decided
to put her in her place.

Why did Olmert spill the beans on his backroom maneuvering against Rice? It
is a very damaging thing that he said. As Daniel Levy, who had been a Labor
Party adviser on peace negotiations, told The Los Angeles Times's Paul
Richter:

' This is terrible for the United States . . . This confirms every
assumption they have in the Arab world about the tail wagging the dog. . . .
It's a story you're likely to hear quoted there for years to come." Levy
also accused Olmert of "unparalleled arrogance.". . ."There are some things
you don't say, even in Ashkelon, even in Hebrew . . . " 


The likelihood is that Olmert was stung by severe criticism of his
government for allowing the UNSC cease-fire resolution to be passed. His
Kadima Party is in a neck and neck race with the even more hard line and far
rightwing Likud Party, with elections to be held on February 10. Presumably
Olmert was trying to deflect the Likudniks' charges that Kadima was inept or
impotent, and to improve the standing of his would-be successor, Tzipi Livni
(now the Foreign Minister).

Olmert is having to step down as prime minister because of a corruption
scandal that blew up in his face and made him look petty and greedy. As a
mediocre politician with an over-sized ego, he doesn't have many
opportunities left to try to rehabilitate his reputation. If he pushed W.
around for Israel's sake while she warred with the Hamas terrorists (his way
of thinking), then maybe that would take some of the edge off his unseemly
money-grubbing and massive list of failures, which include the 2006 Lebanon
War. 

Finally we come to the really big mystery. If the substance of what Olmert
said is correct, even if he got some details wrong, then why in the world
did Bush listen to him? Bush is outgoing and faces no new elections. His
party cannot benefit or suffer with the Israel lobbies from a decision he
took in relative secrecy since it won't even face another election for 2
years, by which time this Gaza war will be completely forgotten.

Why in the world would Bush over-rule the US Secretary of State, for the
sake of Olmert, in the midst of delicate negotiations with European and Arab
allies? Here are the only possibilities I can think of:

1. Bush is as dumb as he looks and just agrees with the last person he spoke
to.

2. Bush hates it when the roar of cannon dies down, and is a sadist who
enjoys prolonging war far too much to ever actively back a ceasefire.

3. Olmert has something over Bush. I remember that Bush had taken on Sharon
in September of 2001, calling for a Palestinian state and ordering Sharon to
stop colonizing the West Bank. Sharon was so furious that he compared
Israel's situation to that of Czechoslovakia in 1938, when the rest of
Europe let Hitler grab part of it. But by spring of 2002 Bush was bending
over backward to please the Likud. What changed? Something did. There is a
mystery to be explained here. I only point out that along with the previous
two explanations, this one would make sense of otherwise baffling behavior
on Bush's part.

Precisely because his overly frank speech raises these sorts of questions, I
expect Olmert to deny the entire address, and then it will be expunged from
the public record and never spoken of again.

In any case, this slippage of the veil over the way US foreign policy is
being dictated by a foreign country reinforces the need for a Peace PAC or
'For America' PAC to counter-act the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, which is obviously way too powerful for Israel's own good.
J-Street and Brit Tzedik Ve Shalom and Tikkun and other liberal
Jewish-American organizations are trying to do the right thing here. Whereas
AIPAC gets plenty of help from the evangelicals, the rest of us are letting
down the majority of the Jewish community that supports the peace process by
not helping it lobby on this issue.

That resolution Olmert tried to spike means that his government's continued
war on Gaza (he ordered 60 airstrikes on Monday through early Tuesday) is
even more illegal than the whole enterprise was to begin with.




posted by Juan Cole @ 1/13/2009 12:32:00 AM


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