Land for peace has for many years been the formula that was supposed to underpin a future Middle East peace settlement. From the ruins of the US venture into Iraq, however, there has emerged a new potential approach, which might be termed "Land for Iraq".
This would be a grand bargain engineered by the US. Lands occupied by Israel, including the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, would be returned to Arab control: the US would guarantee a credible peace process to end the Israeli occupation. For their part, Arab nations, particularly those neighbouring Iraq, would help deliver stability in that country.
Such an approach could help to pull Syria away from its alliance with Iran, cutting off the corridor through which Iran channels resources to groups such as Hizbollah and Hamas. Land for Iraq would give the otherwise disinterested Gulf states an incentive to be part of a grand bargain, since Iraq is vital to Gulf security. The new strategy would isolate Iran from the Arab world, stabilise the Gulf region and bring the oil-rich states of the Gulf to make peace with Israel.
This may not go down well in Tel Aviv. But Washington cannot deal with Iraq's instability without addressing the strategic environment of the Middle East as a whole. Just as the September 11 attacks changed the strategic perceptions of the US, the Palestinian issue has long affected the security views of Arab countries and is the lens through which the Arabs see the west. In the minds of the Arab world today, progress in Arab-Israeli talks has become synonymous with improving the security situation in Iraq.
In rejecting the recommendationsof the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report, Israel essentially rebuffed any attempt to link the stability of Iraq and Arab-Israeli peace. In the same spirit, George H. W. Bush, then US president, said "no linkage" to those Arab countries who tried to pressure Washington to connect the liberation of Kuwait in 1991 with Arab-Israeli negotiations.
In spite of his initial rejection, however, Bush Sr was forced in the end to give in to an inescapable reality; movement on the Iraq front was impossible without change on the Arab-Israeli front. The liberation of Kuwait gave birth to the Madrid peace conference of 1991. The summit was recognition that Iraq could not be divorced from US policies towards the Arab-Israeli conflict. This remains true today.
Ending the Arab-Israeli conflict is by no means sufficient to build a secure, stable and peaceful Iraq. There are tough decisions that the Iraqis must make on their own. Nonetheless, security in Iraq will remain a goal rather than a reality until Iraq's neighbours have lent their support and commitment to its security agenda. Only if Arab states have a greater stake in the security of Iraq can the strategic environment change. At the heart of the killing in Baghdad is the indifference, if not support, that the killers receive from Iraq's neighbours.
Arab states surrounding Iraq have a lot to offer in exchange for America's commitment on an Arab-Israeli peace deal. They can send their ambassadors to Baghdad and confer regional legitimacy on the Iraqi government. Gulf states can provide financial support for Iraqi reconstruction. Saudi Arabia and Jordan can take the lead in stabilising the Sunni centre of Iraq.
Without a commitment to end the Arab-Israeli conflict as an incentive, Washington cannot extract a similar commitment to Iraqi stability from Arab countries, particularly Syria.
Resolving the Palestinian issue would not require Washington to abandon its commitment to Israeli security. Rather, it would mean shifting American and Israeli attitudes from conflict management to conflict resolution.
In this spirit, the US must push for a "Madrid II" - an international summit that would bring together the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Iraq and its six neighbours plus Egypt, and the Palestinians. The parties could discuss the situation in Iraq within the broader context of Middle East regional security.
The usual response to such an approach is to claim that there is no credible Palestinian negotiating partner. Even after the Mecca agreement, the Palestinians do not yet have a unity government; this disunity may itself be related to the lack of progress in peace negotiations with Israel. Land for Iraq, instead of Land for Peace, should therefore be the core of any American and European diplomatic initiative in the Middle East.
The writer is director of the Middle East programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies
