Rice to attend Israeli-Palestinian summit

Arab allies have been asking the Bush administration for some time to work harder for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement, arguing that the lingering conflict undermines efforts to make progress on other Mideast problems, including in Iraq and Iran.

Arab officials said they now will propose a broad bargain to Rice, dubbed “Iraq for Land.”

The deal reflects widespread Arab feeling that a lasting Middle East peace is impossible unless Israel agrees to hand over lands it occupied during the 1967 Mideast war to the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon.

The scheduled meetings with Sunni Arab leaders fell on the same day that Saddam Hussein’s half brother and the former head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court were hanged in Iraq. The Sunni former Iraqi dictator’s chaotic execution two weeks ago incited Sunni anger and drew worldwide criticism.

Rice heading to Kuwait
The top U.S. diplomat is also meeting Tuesday with counterparts from eight Arab countries in Kuwait.

Jordanian King Abdullah II warned Rice that Iraqi political reconciliation would fail if Sunni Iraqis were not engaged in their country’s decision-making.

“Any political process that doesn’t ensure the participation of all segments of Iraqi society will fail and will lead to more violence,” Abdullah told Rice, according to a statement by his press office.

“As a key component of the Iraqi social fabric, the Iraqi Sunni community must be included as partners in building Iraq’s future,” said the king, a leading U.S. ally in the Mideast.

Along with other U.S. allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Jordan is concerned about the growing Shiite Muslim influence, stretching from Iran through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The fear is that the hardline Tehran government will dominate the Mideast and give rise to more extremism, jeopardizing a Mideast settlement and threatening those nations.

Bush’s new strategy to send thousands more troops to Iraq met with strong skepticism across the Mideast.

There were deep doubts that U.S. troops, or the Shiite-led Iraqi government, would tackle what many in the Sunni-dominated Arab world see as the chief threat to Iraq: Shiite militias, blamed for fueling the cycle of sectarian slayings.

Mustafa al-Ani, a military analyst with the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, said the American military has to take down the Shiite militias — particularly the most feared of them, the Mahdi Army, loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, an ally of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Otherwise, the U.S. will lose any support among Iraq’s Sunnis, he said.

Al-Maliki has resisted U.S. pressure in the past to move against al-Sadr’s militia, but last week the prime minister pledged to crack down on the Mahdi Army.

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