U.S. Pressures Mideast on Peace
Associated Press
Date: 05-20-05
By JIM KRANE, Associated Press Writer
SOUTHERN SHUNEH, Jordan - The Bush administration will increase pressure for political and economic reform in the Middle East, calling on countries to organize elections, permit a free press and promote human rights, a senior official told a global economic forum Friday.
Washington will provide grant money and diplomatic support for reformers, bankrolling grass-roots projects it deems worthwhile, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said in a keynote speech at a World Economic Forum conference on the Middle East at this Dead Sea resort.
Zoellick said President Bush had asked him to help oversee a "government-wide strategy to support political and economic reform from Morocco to Afghanistan."
He said the new policy will replace traditional diplomacy conducted through U.S. embassies with pressure to adopt the Bush administration's ideals of free trade and democracy in the Middle East.
"The old days of a foreign policy characterized only by the meetings and machinations of diplomatic statecraft are past," Zoellick said.
Zoellick was speaking at a three-day international conference sponsored by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum focused on Mideast problems. It brought together about 1,300 international business and political leaders. The Forum is best known for its glitzy annual meeting in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.
Zoellick said the Bush administration believes its new approach to the Middle East will eventually result in a security payoff.
"This broader engagement is the foundation for America's efforts to counter terrorism, forward peace processes and strengthen security," Zoellick said.
"This will not be an easy transformation," he said. "The pace of change is likely to spark resistance. There will be some who want to maintain the status quo or even drag the region back into a darkness that abhors modernity and tolerance."
Turning to problems in Iraq, Zoellick said defeating the insurgency will take years of deadly conflict, but he predicted guerrilla warfare will eventually give way to democracy.
Beating the insurgents requires a combined political and economic approach, along with a greater Iraqi role in the U.S. military's counterinsurgency battle, something Zoellick said he believes will succeed despite the burgeoning violence.
"I believe it can be bloody and nasty and I believe it's going to take a lot of hard work over a number of years," he told reporters before his speech.
"I don't underestimate the fact that trying to make a democracy work under these conditions is extremely trying."
He said the rebels appear to be trying to foment civil war but predicted they would not succeed.
"Iraqis and the world are looking for Muslim leaders, governmental and spiritual, to condemn this horrible assault on the most basic humanity," Zoellick said. "It is up to you to decide whether they will destroy the soul of Islam."
The United States is already in negotiations on a spate of free trade agreements with Middle Eastern countries.
Israel has enjoyed free trade with the United States for 20 years. Jordan signed a similar pact in 2001. Morocco and Bahrain are in the process of signing further agreements, and Oman and the United Arab Emirates are still in negotiations.
Zoellick said Washington would like to push Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Algeria and Yemen to join the World Trade Organization, a first step before entering a separate trade pact with the United States.
The first such project under the new Bush initiative is a literacy and educational campaign in Jordan, he said.
Jordan's King Abdullah II urged Mideast leaders to "seize the moment" and move ahead with political and economic reforms. But he cautioned that such reforms cannot be imposed from the outside.
At a protest in the capital Amman, representatives of 13 opposition political parties in Jordan condemned the Forum as an attempt by Western nations to control the Middle East.
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