Road Map to Nowhere

Remember the "Road Map to Peace" in the Middle East? It was to be the Bush administration's big breakthrough in the peace process. Bush put forth his proposal in spring 2002: Palestinians would have to renounce terrorism and find themselves new leaders, other than of Yasser Arafat vintage; Israelis would have to quit attacking the Occupied Territories. And all would be well toward a rejuvenated, democratic Middle East as the Palestinian example would create a domino effect across the region.

Bush made those proposals in a pair of speeches in April and June 2002. But his reluctance in making them proved to be their undoing.

Bush never intended to be involved in the peace process. He made that clear to Ariel Sharon in 1998, two years before he became president, in his only visit to the region until then. He was flying over the Occupied Territories (which he mischaracterized as “Palestinian camps”) and quite explicitly decided that it “looked real bad down there” and that it wasn’t America’s fight. “I think it’s time to pull out of that situation.” (Paul O’Neill, Bush’s first secretary of the treasury, quoted Bush saying those words, which were first reported in Ron Suskind’s “The Price of Loyalty” in 2004).

When the second uprising became too bloody, Bush looked bad just standing on the sidelines. So he unfolded his Road Map—only to divert it with his invasion of Iraq less than a year later. Distracted, overwhelmed, or back to his 1998 posture, he never really follow-up on the Israeli-Palestinian initiative.

The Road Map now is barely mentioned, but it remains a telling example of the much-reduced reach of American diplomacy and capabilities since 2001. Read a complete analysis of the two speeches and what went wrong with the Road Map’s implementation in the last five years.