As a US attack on Iraq becomes imminent, the Bush administration is rushing around trying to get international backing only to find that another seemingly unrelated conflict is hindering their entire efforts. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains unsolved and three quarters of the Quartet want this remedied at the same time as dealing with Iraq. The American response was to draw up a rushed and ambiguous "road map" that if followed, at least in theory, would achieve peace. This initiative was delivered by William Burns, Assistant Secretary of State, heading the US envoy touring the Middle East in an attempt to convince everyone of the genius of this plan. Sadly, however, this mission was doomed to burn as shortly after it was presented to Sharon, during his 7th visit to the White House; he completely blasted and dismissed the plan. Sharon even made a point of telling visitors in recent days that he had not bothered to read it.

The "road map," delivered to Israelis eight days before Palestinians received the draft, envisions three phases that will culminate in a fully independent Palestinian state. In the first phase, from October to next May, Israel must loosen restrictions on Palestinian territories and withdraw to positions held on September 28, 2000, halt "attacks in civilian areas", dismantle illegal outposts that were set up during Sharon's term only and cease all settlement construction. The Palestinians are demanded to create an "empowered" prime minister, a move aimed at sidelining Arafat in conjunction with Sharon's demands, draft a constitution and declare an immediate end to the armed Intifada and "all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere." It remains a mystery why it is continually insisted that Palestinians abandon their struggle first, even though they are the ones suffering from occupation. The second phase would see the creation of a provisional Palestinian state by December 2003. The third phase would lead to a final agreement that would establish a fully independent Palestine by 2005.

One does not need to look beyond the first phase to realize that Sharon will never give this plan a chance. Sharon has already disregarded two previous U.S. efforts, the Mitchell Plan of June 2001 and the Bush speech of June 2002, which ironically seemed to be written by Israeli speechwriters, and stated that he will not accept any deviation from the hard-line stance of the latter. The reason is that Sharon doesn't want a political or peaceful solution, but rather to dictate his terms for ending the conflict. The hawkish and fundamentalist Likud party staunchly guards its platform of never accepting a Palestinian state. Hence, it is clear that even if the extremist Sharon came to his sense, his party would never be willing to accept returning to 1967 borders, or freezing settlement construction or dividing Jerusalem. In fact, it is a safe bet that every member of the Likud party would rather die before making any such "sacrifices". Sharon and his goons continue to thwart, shoot down and burn any political solution and yet it is Arafat who is the only "obstacle to peace".

Why then should Palestinians consider an already doomed "road map" that coincidentally addresses the most vital Palestinian concerns in ambiguous terms? Moreover, this initiative lacks three main elements: first, it does not have an implementation mechanism, second, provides no clarity of time lines and third, is extremely vague with regards monitors on the ground as Israeli officials intimated to the U.S. their belief that any monitors would be inherently biased against Israel. In a word, it provides Palestinians absolutely no guarantees that America will follow through and urge Israel to abide with the plan. America, along with the rest of the Quartet, must realize that bilateralism will never work and without multilateral action any hope of a two state solution will continue to fade until it becomes an unviable solution. Palestinians can only hope that this U.S. initiative is not only aimed at buying Bush the time he needs to garner support to attack Iraq and that his administration realizes the need not to put Palestinians on the backburner while dealing with Saddam Hussein.