Sorry, Still No Sale

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The symbolism surrounding Bill Clinton's witness-for-peace visit to the Middle East was almost too perfect. At the desert border crossing where he met Jordan's King Hussein and Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to co-sign their treaty of friendship, the table was set up on an asphalt strip in the middle of a minefield. An area had been paved and fenced in specifically for the ceremony. "Walk 15 yards beyond that barbed wire," a U.S. Secret Service agent warned onlookers, "and you won't be coming back."

Another warning of danger outside the wire-rimmed islet of peace sounded in the north, where militiamen, presumably from the Muslim extremist group Hizballah, in Lebanon exchanged fire with Israeli troops. And in the Gaza Strip the Palestine Liberation Organization's leader Yasser Arafat, with whom Israel made peace last year, called a general strike. He was protesting a clause in the treaty that lends weight to Jordan's claim to protect Jerusalem's Muslim holy places.

Clinton's four-day, six-country tour, his first foray into the Middle East, taught him just how treacherous a terrain he had entered. He had hoped for a prime-time TV triumph to boost his party's midterm election chances when he seized upon the Israeli-Jordanian settlement to fly off to dramatic presidential appearances in Cairo, Amman, Damascus, Jerusalem, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. He quickly discovered that the Middle East and its problems guarantee not only the world's attention but risks, surprises and, for every misstep, a potential explosion.

The trip began joyously with the moving ceremony formalizing peace between Israel and Jordan. Hussein and Rabin were notably warm to each other and to Clinton, and their heartfelt words bespoke an authentic friendship and respect. That heady afternoon built expectations of more good news; Israel especially hoped the President could find a way to speed up its glacial negotiations over the Golan Heights. But Clinton immediately ran up against Syria's President Hafez Assad.

Before going to Damascus to meet Assad, Clinton warned there would be no "dramatic breakthrough," explaining carefully that he hoped only to give the stalled negotiations a push forward. After his four hours of talks, Clinton claimed he had done that -- at least in private. "We've made some progress today," he said, "the details of which I'm not at liberty to discuss." Though evidence of such progress was scant, Rabin politely agreed there was some. Syrians and Israelis alike told Clinton they wanted peace and would work to achieve it. That was slightly promising and probably about the best Clinton could have hoped for his first time around.