Tony Blair: State Of Limbo
It's been a long year for Tony Blair. After stepping down as British Prime Minister in June, under fire for his Iraq policy, he took on what many consider the hardest job in the Middle East: the representative of the Quartet—the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations—to the Palestinians. At least there was a bright spot in late December: at a donor conference in Paris, he secured pledges of $7.4 billion in aid. He spoke by phone with NEWSWEEK'S Kevin Peraino. Excerpts:
PERAINO:
When you took this job, you heard resentment among Palestinians over your support for the Iraq War. How can you get past that lack of trust?
BLAIR: For the Palestinians, it is essential to have someone who can deal with the Americans and the Israelis. Let's be absolutely clear about this—this is a tough thing to say, but it's absolutely true: if you are not a friend to Israel, you will play no very helpful part in bringing about a solution to this. People know I have relationships with people in the American administration that mean I can have a serious conversation with President Bush and Condi Rice. I find that the ordinary Palestinian is so desperate to get his situation improved that it's an advantage that you've got somebody who can actually liaise with the Israelis and the Americans.
President Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are all politically weak. Are these really good conditions for peace talks?
They're not weak if they can show progress. They become strong. The Palestinian people—and I am absolutely sure about this—will back the leadership that delivers the deal. And they want a two-state deal. They don't want a war with Israel. The fact that it's President Bush's last year in office, to me, is not the issue. I concluded the Northern Ireland peace deal the month before I left.
Your predecessor as Quartet envoy, James Wolfensohn, reportedly cautioned you against taking this job. Is that true?
Um … he didn't say, "Don't do it." On the contrary, he said, "Do do it." [Laughs] He did say, "These are the things to beware of." And he gave me very good and valuable advice.
What advice did he give you?
[Laughs] Which should remain between the two of us.
In some ways, things have worsened. At least then Fatah hadn
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t yet been routed in Gaza.
Yeah, but the trouble with the nationalunity government was that they didn't have agreement on core principles—not least the attitude toward Israel. We couldn't have had the state-building conference in Paris or Annapolis if you'd still had that situation. Although, of course, we've got to deal with how we unify Gaza with the West Bank—there's one Palestinian state and not two that need to be created.
Won
'
t Abbas have to regain control of Gaza for there to be peace?
We will have to have a unified Palestinian territory. How that happens is a delicate, difficult issue, and probably not for answering now. Although I think there is a strategy that can achieve that.
One school of thought says that Fatah will return to Gaza at the end of Israeli bayonets
—
a military solution. The other calls for a unity government. Which is likelier?
The truth is, no one knows how this will resolve itself. The question is: should there be a rapprochement between Gaza and the West Bank? Yes.
Do you favor direct negotiation with Hamas?
You can't have negotiations about a two-state solution with a party that's not prepared to accept that there should be two states. You negotiate with anybody who accepts the basic principles necessary to make the negotiations productive.
Your successor, Gordon Brown, will cut British troop levels in Iraq by half. Is this hard to watch?
[Laughs] If you don't mind, I think we're going a little bit off the Middle East here. One thing I absolutely don't do is comment on what's happened after me, because I don't think that's fair to my successor, who I support 100 percent.
You just sold a memoir for $9 million. How were you able to convince your publisher you could write a best seller and make peace in the Middle East simultaneously?
Look, I'm a politician—I can convince a lot of people of a lot of things.
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Kevin Peraino has been the Jerusalem bureau chief at Newsweek since January 2005. He reports from throughout the Middle East, filing regularly from Israel, the Palestinian territories, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq. His tenure has coincided with one of the region's most tumultuous periods in recent history; stories have included Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution," Israel's historic withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the incapacitation of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the rise of the Islamist group Hamas, civil war and revolution in Gaza, and Israel's summer conflict with Lebanon's Hizbullah organization.
In 2003, Peraino covered the American invasion of Iraq, where he was embedded with the U.S. Army's Third Infantry Division. He rode in a Bradley fighting vehicle from the first thrust across the Kuwaiti border to the division's arrival, under fire, at Saddam International Airport. His dispatches contributed to Newsweek's being honored with the most prestigious award in magazine journalism -- the 2004 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. He also filed regular reports from the front for National Public Radio.
The following year, Peraino was a member of Newsweek's Campaign 2004 Special Project Team, based in Washington, D.C. In that position he followed the campaign of President George W. Bush, reporting for more than a year from behind the scenes for the special issue that Newsweek published two days after Election Day. The project won a 2005 National Magazine Award for Single-Topic Issue. It was later published as a book titled Election 2004: How Bush Won and What You Can Expect in the Future, by Public Affairs press. It became a national bestseller.
Peraino appears regularly as a guest commentator on television and radio programs to discuss his stories, including: CNN's "Larry King Live," NBC's "Today," MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews," MSNBC's "The News with Brian Williams," Fox News's "O'Reilly Factor," C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" and many others.
A 1998 graduate Northwestern University, Peraino has also written for the Wall Street Journal Europe, New York magazine and Hamptons magazine. He is a native of Ridgefield, Conn.
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