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Photo by the Associate Press
The Wye Agreement
With an ailing King Hussein looking on, President Clinton
held the center of the stage as Arafat and Netanyahu signed onto the Wye agreement.
Enlarging America's Role
The Wye River
agreement lifts
the U.S. role in
the Mideast peace
process to a new
and more
complicated
height.
JAMES D. BESSER
Washington Correspondent
10/30
1998
•
ast week's Wye agreement to
restart the Mideast peace
process was a triumph of
determination on the part of
President Bill Clinton and his negotiat-
ing team. But it was something else, as
well: a dramatic new stage in the
"Americanization" of the peace process.
Now, U.S. officials will be the arbiters
of Palestinian and Israeli compliance
with the accords. The CIA, which has
played a comfortable behind-the-scenes
role, will be dragged into a public spot-
light where political and diplomatic con-
siderations can easily override intelli-
gence-gathering functions.
"The new American role is not an
easy one, and it won't be easy for us,"
said Phil Baum, executive director of the
American Jewish Congress. "You want
(the administration) in there, being
active, but you don't want them dictat-
ing terms or applying pressure. But
where does one end and the other
begin? That's where we run into trouble,
and I'm not sure we're altogether up to
that challenge."
Implementation of the Wye agree-
ment will be contentious, with both
sides seeking to influence the judges in
Washington, said Mark Rosenblum,
political director of Americans for Peace
Now
"It's far from clear that the President
will be ableto withstand pressures that
will emerge when the first disputes take
place over compliance, and he has to
make a call on who's to blame for what,"
he said.
American Jewish groups, pressed by
the Israeli government to provide a
counterforce to administration pressure,
will be right in the middle of that cross-
fire, he said.
A key issue in the agreement, which
commits Israel to a further 13 percent
redeployment in return for specific
Palestinian actions to combat terrorism
and sets the stage for the start of final
status talks, is the referee role proposed
for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Observers expect that it will actively ref-
eree in disputes over suspected
Palestinian terrorists and monitor arrests
and prosecutions by Palestinian authori-
ties.
Peace process supporters say that new
role, though risky, was inevitable because
of the enormous mistrust that has devel-
oped over the past two years.
"Given where the peace process was
before the Wye agreement, this was the
best possible development," said
111►
Stephen P. Cohen, vice chairman of the
Center for Middle East Peace and
Economic Cooperation, a pro-peace
process group. The CIA, he said, has
the experience and the expertise to pro-
vide independent, balanced information
about compliance.
CIA monitoring, he added, means
that "for the first time, we will have a b.
situation in which Israel is no longer the
ultimate arbiter of Palestinian life. That
is the first step toward the end of occu-
pation. That's good for Israel and for the
peace process."
Some peace process supporters say
the enhanced American role will lead to
better compliance by both sides.
Marshall Breger, a consultant for
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