Summits and Valleys

As he sat at the evening banquet, held outside in the soft air of Washington's spring, President Jimmy Carter was thrilled to see bitter enemies welcome each other as friends. Earlier that day – March 26, 1979 – President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel had signed the Camp David accords, formally ending the state of war that had existed between their countries for 31 years. Now, they were mingling on the White House lawn, glasses and plates in hand, swapping tales of old wars.

At one point, Shaul, son of Israeli Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, approached the head table to pay his respects. While serving with Israeli forces years earlier, Shaul had been severely wounded by Egyptian fire. But on this night, the leader of Egypt's armies, Mr. Sadat himself, rose and embraced him.

Days later, Mr. Begin made what he judged a triumphal visit to Cairo. He phoned Mr. Carter and, almost shouting with glee, described the warmth of his welcome. Then Sadat called, also buoyant. Surely now the Arabs and Israelis could lift from America's shoulders the "burden" of serving as an intermediary in negotiations, he said. "If you do, my fervent prayers will have been answered," said Carter.

That heady moment may represent the high point of American peacemaking in the Middle East.

Just ask President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell. They might say that today the "burden" Sadat referred to is as heavy as ever.

Virtually every US chief executive since Carter has entered office determined to avoid mediation in one of the most explosive areas of the world. Virtually all ended their terms hip-deep in the search for solutions to the conflict between Israel on the one side and Palestinians and Arab states on the other.

Why is this so? The combatants themselves push it, for one thing. The United States has historic ties to both Israel and moderate Arab states such as Saudi Arabia. The Israelis tend to distrust the European Union, Russia, and most other possible mediators. The Palestinians believe that only the US has the power to get Israel to do something it doesn't really want to do.

Also at stake are US national interests in the region. A conflagration in the Mideast would threaten the industrial world's access to Gulf oil. It could threaten the security of Israel, a democratic state with strong cultural and political ties to America. During the cold war, US officials worked hard to limit Soviet influence with the Arabs. Truth be told, they probably want to muscle out other big-power rivals, even benign ones, today.

But there may be an "X" factor at work as well. A cold calculation of geopolitics does not explain Jimmy Carter poring endlessly over maps of the Sinai, personally drawing possible lines of Israeli-Egyptian disengagement. It does not explain why President George Herbert Walker Bush's secretary of State, James A. Baker, would sit through a 9-1/2 hour meeting with Syria's Hafez al-Assad (Mr. Baker's aides invented "important" phone calls so they could use the lavatory).

Nor do policy concerns entirely explain President Clinton devoting more time to face-to-face Mideast peace negotiations than any US leader, ever, even as the prospect of success receded in the distance.

In the end, US presidents and their closest aides can become personally immersed in the Mideast peace process. It is big. It is interesting. Their views matter. Presidents drive US policy, serving as the swing vote between a reliably pro-Israeli Congress and a State Department bureaucracy more in tune with Arab views.

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