Bush Clarifies 'Terror Doctrine'
Associated Press, April 2, 2002
washingtonpost.com
Bush Clarifies 'Terror Doctrine'
By Sonya Ross
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, April 2, 2002; 8:58 AM
WASHINGTON –– President Bush now admits that the one-size-fits-all "Bush
doctrine" on terrorism in fact doesn't fit Yasser Arafat.
Bush said Monday that the Palestinian leader's past
as a peace negotiator exempts Arafat from the post-Sept. 11 U.S. policy
that a country or entity that harbors terrorists will be dealt with as
terrorists.
It is a loophole the president was wise to create
for Arafat, analysts say, since a reality-based edit of Bush's edict was
inevitable anyway.
"This is the problem with terrorism. Terrorism is
applied by all kinds of different people for all different reasons," said
Ken Pollack, director of national security studies for the Council on Foreign
Relations. "The administration is certainly figuring out that is the case
with the Palestinians; that treating them the way you would treat al-Qaida
is simply not the way you would handle them."
What is likely to happen, Pollack said, is that
other countries or groups will seek similar exceptions, and Bush will be
forced to address them on a case-by-case basis. "They have created the
impression that this is how all terrorists will be treated. That is the
critical flaw. You may not want to treat all of them the same way," Pollack
said.
Even as Bush leaned on Arafat to call a halt to
the suicide bomb attacks that have rocked Israel in recent days, he also
gave Arafat an out because "he has negotiated with parties as to how to
achieve peace."
Or, as Secretary of State Colin Powell put it Tuesday
on CBS' "The Early Show": "It would not serve our purpose right now to
brand him individually as a terrorist."
The White House carefully drew distinctions between
how the United States approaches Arafat – or, really, any Palestinian organization
– and al-Qaida, the terrorist network that was sheltered by Afghanistan's
now-toppled government of the Taliban militia.
"The situation in the Middle East is, indeed, different,"
said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. He noted that Arafat signed the
1993 Oslo accords, under which the Palestinian movement for first time
recognized Israel's right to exist. That set the stage for a series of
Israeli pullbacks on the West Bank and subsequent agreement on day-to-day
security arrangements with Israel and a process for returning to peace
negotiations.
"That was not, is not, the case with al-Qaida. And
I understand you want to compare them, but that's not a comparison that
the president accepts," Fleischer said.
By exempting Arafat, Bush also made clear to Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that he will not allow Israel to manipulate
the Bush doctrine at will, said Joe Montville, director of the preventive
diplomacy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"He implies that Arafat is not running the terrorist
initiatives like a guy sitting at the Wurlitzer, controlling the movements,"
Montville said. "He is telling Sharon ... for better or worse, Yasser Arafat
is the symbol of the Palestinian nation, and we have to deal with him.
Sharon can call Arafat the enemy of all mankind. And it simply won't work."
The Middle East is not the only area where administration
officials see they must create wiggle room in the Bush doctrine. They see
a need for nuance even in Afghanistan, the only case so far where the Bush
doctrine was applied.
"There are different approaches that you have to
take, given the circumstances that you find on the ground," Bush's national
security adviser Condoleezza Rice told reporters last month while en route
to Peru, scene of a terrorist car bombing just days before Bush visited
there.
For example, Rice said, the eye-for-an-eye aspects
of the Bush doctrine wouldn't apply to Yemen and the Philippines, because
the governments are cooperating with the United States "to improve their
capability to go after terrorists in their midst."
"So clearly (each) approach is different," Rice
said. "But what's very clear is the president believes terrorism is wrong."
–––
On the Net:
White House terrorism site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/response/
© 2002 The Associated Press
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