Tested by Zion Read Free Page A

Jordanians were meanwhile pursuing the same path, working not with White House officials but only with the State Department, and urging that the steps leading to a two-state solution needed to be spelled out. Powell, their main interlocutor, was not encouraging in his discussion with Foreign Minister Muasher; perhaps his losing struggle over the content of the June 24 speech made him careful about predicting what he could push through the White House. “We're not there yet,” he told the Jordanian. In July, the Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian foreign ministers were invited to meet with the Quartet in New York, at the United Nations, and the following day were asked to come to Washington to see President Bush in the Oval Office. In those meetings, the Jordanian minister again pressed for a Roadmap that outlined concrete steps, measures of performance, and timelines.
    Ten days later, on August 1, King Abdullah of Jordan met with Bush. Preparing for the meeting, Muasher heard from Rice on July 31 precisely what he had been told by Powell: “This is a non-starter.” The Palestinians needed toperform on security first “and then we will see.” Muasher prepared the king for a tough meeting because the Americans were plainly rejecting the Roadmap concept. When King Abdullah presented the idea to Bush, the president replied as Rice had predicted: We are not ready for that yet; the Palestinians must work on security first. But this Roadmap is nothing new, the Jordanians argued; it is merely a way to translate your vision into steps. In a back and forth with Muasher, whom the king asked to explain what the Jordanians meant by a Roadmap, Bush began to come around. I don't think I have a problem with that, he finally said, and asked Muasher to work with Bill Burns on a proposal.
    Both the Jordanians and the State Department leapt at the invitation and the drafting began. This was an unexpected gift for the State officials: In late June it had appeared that the traditional diplomatic approach was at an end, but only five weeks later the president was instructing them to reengage with their Arab and EU counterparts. In August and especially in September, when so many foreign ministries move to New York for the UN General Assembly, the preliminary Danish version was amended over and over again, and by the September 17 meeting of the Quartet, a near-final text was in hand. The White House had had little influence in these revisions; its supposed representative was a career CIA official detailed to the NSC and fully in sympathy with Burns andthe Near East Bureau at State.
    In mid-October, Sharon was to visit the White House again, and so it was time to reel in the Israelis. To that point the text had been developed entirely without their input, and indeed they did not even know of the American involvement in the Roadmap. At a preparatory meeting between American and Israeli officials shortly before the Bush-Sharon meeting in the Oval Office, Hadley handed over a few pages. Take a look at this, he told Weissglas andTourgeman; it's something we've prepared. The pair had become Israel's two-man foreign ministry when it came to dealing with the United States, and between Weissglas's humor and panache and Tourgeman's brilliant mind and command of detail, they were perfectly balanced. A career diplomat who had served in London and Amman, Jordan, Tourgeman later succeeded Ayalon as diplomatic advisor and played a central role under Prime Minister Olmert as well.
    The pair went back to Blair House, the presidential guest house across from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue where Sharon was staying, made a few copies of what Hadley had handed them, and discussed the text with Danny Ayalon andothers in the delegation. They told Sharon that the draft contained many problems for Israel. “It's a very bad document,” Tourgeman told him. After reading the text and hearing all the comments, Sharon decided, “We are not going to respond to this