The Other Mideast War

When President Bush makes public this week his plan for the creation of a Palestinian state, the exact shape his proposal takes will be crucial to more than just the future of the Middle East peace process. It will also reveal the outcome of another bitter struggle the one between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Administration hard-liners, led by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Powell is pushing for early recognition of a Palestinian state, a firm time line for determining its borders and capital, and a strong U.S. statement on the thorniest issues. Rumsfeld and Cheney oppose an assertive American solution; instead, they want to give Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a freer hand to tackle Palestinian terrorists and leave tough final-status issues for well down the line. Bush has left it to his aides to fight over which of the two dramatically different approaches he will endorse. And fight they have. When Powell told an Arab newspaper that the Administration was leaning toward early recognition (which TIME reported in April), Bush's spokesman Ari Fleischer responded icily, "The Secretary, from time to time, will reflect on the advice that he gets and do so publicly." Powell, never known for getting ahead of his boss, has been more aggressive than usual, driving the process since early April, when Bush backed off his demand that the Palestinians end all terrorist attacks before political issues could be discussed. But the infighting is growing intense again; the Cheney-Rumsfeld approach minimizes concessions to Palestinians to avoid encouraging further terrorist attacks. For one State official, it amounts to "don't just do something; sit there." If Powell loses this fight, in which he has invested much diplomatic capital with leaders in the region, it will be the biggest blow yet to a Secretary of State who has worn the title "odd man out" since the first days of the Administration.