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CNN Live Sunday

Interview With Tony Karon of Time.com

Aired June 09, 2002 - 18:06   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Tomorrow is the sixth time President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon will meet. So what, if anything, is going to come out of this meeting? Tony Karon is the world editor from Time.com, our sister publication.

Hi, Tony, good to see you. I'm wondering as you look at this meeting tomorrow, what are your expectations? What are these men actually bringing to the table?

TONY KARON, TIME.COM: It's a very difficult question for President Bush and for the Bush administration in general, because essentially what we're seeing now is the chickens coming home to roost from the intervention that President Bush made in April when Israel was engaged in Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank. Essentially, in conjunction with the Saudis, the U.S. adopted this policy of multiple tracks moving at the same time, the peace process being revived at the same time as moves to fight terrorism, moves to reform the Palestinian Authority, and so on.

The problem on the peace front in particular is that there isn't very much to talk about right now, because the positions are so fundamentally different. Sharon is essentially saying no short-term agenda, long-term interim process, and he's also saying no withdrawal to the 1967 borders as the basis for negotiations. For all of the moderate Arabs, not only the Palestinians, the 1967 borders is the starting point, is something of an absolute. So I think the Bush administration is now caught in a position of having to declare its own intentions.

LIN: Well, so what is there to discuss?

KARON: Well, I think the interesting question is to what extent the Bush administration is prepared to put itself at odds with Sharon. And there's a lot of speculation about that in the Israeli media, certainly, where some of the Israeli journalists are suggesting that even domestic electoral concerns make it unlikely that Bush is prepared to do that. Sharon is coming here making clear that he doesn't want any sort of short-term timetable, and the kind of parameters of a peace plan that he's looking at are very different from what everybody has said up to now, both, you know, even some of the U.S. positions that have been outlined previously.

So the question is to what extent there's going to be any sort of harsh words traded. I don't think that is very likely right now. I think in a lot of ways the administration's position is treading water. It's kind of caught between the need of its moderate Arab allies to move forward quickly, and it's caught -- on the one hand -- and on the other hand, an Israeli leadership that's not inclined to really open up the political track at all right now.

LIN: But Tony, do you see agreement between President Bush and Yasser Arafat that both parties are making an aggressive attempt to minimize Yasser Arafat?

KARON: It has been suggested that there's a nod and a wink to minimize Arafat's role. At the end of the day, I think that might not really change the fundamentals of what's at odds here. Whether people think Arafat is a good leader or a bad leader, whether they think he can deliver or not, the question that's being asked by, you know, Mubarak and certainly during his visit on the weekend, is what exactly are we working toward here? What's the big picture? What is the Palestinian state going to look like, with Arafat or without Arafat?

And I think there's big disagreement on that. I think the question of Arafat can be overstated to the point that it can become something of a red herring or a distraction. Ultimately, this conflict is not ultimately about Arafat.

LIN: But Tony, you've got a log jam here. I'm trying to get some clarity for the audience. You've got this big meeting coming up between Ariel Sharon and President Bush tomorrow. You've got Ariel Sharon saying that he is not going to deal with Yasser Arafat. You've got the Bush administration openly questioning Arafat's leadership role with the Palestinian people. What are the implications of this discussion? I mean, if Mr. Arafat is not going to be a partner for peace?

KARON: Well, ultimately, it's not going to really be up to either the Americans or the Israelis to decide who represents the Palestinians. Obviously, there's a lot of speculation, again, in the Israeli media that Sharon's intention is to exile Arafat, to get rid of him. The moderate Arabs are absolutely opposed to that. Washington's formal position certainly is absolutely against that.

But the question really becomes, you know, Arafat, they claim they're not happy with Arafat, they'd rather have someone else there, but what sort of positions would anyone other than Arafat take that would be fundamentally different from those Arafat has taken?

LIN: And isn't there a risk, though, isn't there a risk, in Arafat's absence, that really what fills the political vacuum are these militant groups like Islamic Jihad and Hamas, et cetera?

KARON: Well, not only that, I mean, I think the political vacuum is already in place in many ways where you have a lot of the rank and file of Arafat's own organization patently disregarding his own treaties to stop terrorism attacks, and so on, and simply going ahead and saying, you know, your way didn't work, so now we're going to do it our own way.

So that problem is already there. Taking Arafat out of the equation would probably exacerbate some of that problem. Of course, the Israelis say if that's the case, then why not simply take him out of the equation? But at the end of the day, it doesn't answer the fundamental questions. It might be -- he might be taken out of the equation or sent into exile from where he'll obviously continue to play some sort of a role. But it doesn't really solve the fundamental question of the violence on the West Bank and Gaza and in Israel.

LIN: Tony Karon, a very complicated story indeed. The meeting takes place tomorrow. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush. Thanks so much for your time.

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