Arabs to Resist Rice Isolating Hamas, Iran on Trip

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will face resistance from Arab allies on a trip this week to enlist their support for a campaign to isolate two U.S. adversaries, Hamas and Iran.

Rice, who will visit Egypt on Tuesday and travel to Saudi Arabia and to a regional meeting in the United Arab Emirates, will lobby states to deny aid to a Hamas-led Palestinian government and push Iran to curb its nuclear plans.

Arab powers such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia oppose Hamas’ rejection of peace talks with Israel and fear a nuclear-armed Iran.

But they are reluctant to explicitly support America in the Middle East, where U.S. backing for its top ally in the region, Israel, angers many Arabs and clouds governments’ cooperation with Washington.

“Arabs will turn round and point out the United States gives billions of dollars to Israel,” said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. “It’s just an area where they will have to agree to disagree.”

Complicating her mission, Rice will also make her appeal against a backdrop of deadly anti-Western protests in the Muslim world over cartoons published in Europe of Prophet Mohammad.

On Hamas, which the United States considers a terrorist organization, Rice has led a faltering campaign to cut off diplomatic ties and aid to the anti-Israel Islamic group since it won a parliamentary election last month.

This wire story, via The New York Times pretty well sums up what Secretary of State Rice will be facing this week.

Saudi Arabia–both government and people–distinguish the two arms of Hamas: the militants and the social service agency. While they have serious questions about the first, but tend to see it as legitimate in its fight against an “occupying power,” they have few questions about the latter. The US government, and most Americans, see Hamas as a single agency that uses terror as a tool to achieve its aims.

This is a difficult area. For decades, both the US government and the American people, for instance, drew a line between the Provisional Irish Revolutionary Army, which engaged in terror, and Sìnn Fein, its political and social arm. The first was bad; the second was good. At least good enough to be invited to the White House and legally engage in fund-raising in the US.

Now, the US government isn’t so friendly toward Sìnn Fein and has formally labled the IRA a terrorist organization. Politics on the ground are going to have to shift sufficiently for the Saudis to make this congnative change. It will be a huge success if Rice can get the Saudi government to acknowledge a difference between the two wings of Hamas.

Depending on what Rice has to say about Iran, she may find a more willing audience. The Saudis are well aware of Iran, sitting about 90-seconds flying time from its eastern coast. Due to a variety of historical, social, political, and religious differences, Saudi Arabia and Iran are not the best of friends. But they are neighbors and have to live with each other. Saudi calculus on the matter has differences from the American one as a result.