September 11, Crisis Resolution

Articles

Interviews

Letters

Responses to September 11th

Speeches

"A Peacemaking Force to Bail Out the Roadmap?"

Dennis Sandole
Prof. of Conflict Resolution and International Relations

Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post:

Secretary of State Colin Powell's recent rebuke of Israeli "targeted assassinations" as an "impediment to progress" ("Powell Regrets Killing of Militant," WP, June 23, 2003) is unique not merely for a senior member of the Bush Administration which tends to condemn only Palestinian acts of violence, but also for what it and Powell's further comments at the World Economic Forum in Jordan might presage: deployment of a peacemaking force in the region.

Otherwise, it is difficult to imagine how "the international community [can] press on to break the cycle of violence" between Israelis and Palestinians without such an intervention comprising the architects of the stalled Roadmap: the UN, EU, US, and Russian Federation (the "Quartet").

Will (can) the Bush Administration rise to the challenge of convincing the Israelis -- as the Palestinians seem to be -- that, given the events of the last 33 months, such an intervention is an absolute necessity for guaranteeing a ceasefire: itself a necessary
precondition of everything else that the Roadmap has promised but cannot at present deliver, including the creation of a viable Palestinian state?