Clinton: Iraq war not helping Mideast peace efforts
 |  Former President Clinton |
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| ON CNN TV |
Tune in to CNN for Christiane Amanpour's full interview with former President Clinton at 9 a.m. ET Sunday.
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(CNN) -- Although the Bush administration believes former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was an inherent threat to the Mideast, going to war in Iraq has not aided the Middle East peace process, former President Clinton told CNN in a recent interview.
The road to peace in the Mideast does not go through Baghdad, but rather "through resolving the differences between the Palestinians and the Israelis," he said.
The Bush administration, Clinton said, "thought if we could have a representative, pluralistic government in Iraq it would destabilize and force change in other autocratic regimes in the Middle East and it might even help us make peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians."
However, brokering peace between Israelis and Palestinians depends on "giving the Israelis a rock-solid guarantee of security and normal relations with its neighbors, and giving the Palestinians their own country on the West Bank ... with their capital in the eastern part of Jerusalem," Clinton told CNN's Christiane Amanpour in an interview that will air in its entirety this weekend.
"I think that that will do more than anything else to reduce the impulse of terror around the world, and especially in the region, and give the Middle East a peaceful future."
Clinton said at the end of his presidency he met with President Bush and advised him that his biggest security issue would be Osama bin Laden and his terror network, al Qaeda.
The second issue, Clinton predicted, would be the absence of a peace process in the Middle East, because it was a major underlying cause of Mideast terror.
Clinton, whose administration spent his term as president trying to forge a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians, said he could understand why Bush would not want to make such a commitment of time and resources.
"On the other hand, there's one rule we know. I don't think that when you're dealing with the Middle East or with any thorny, long-simmering problem, you can hold yourself to a standard that says the only success is a complete agreement.
"Because if that's your standard, then your success or failure totally depends upon what other people decide to do and how they read their own interests," Clinton said.
Just before leaving office, Clinton proposed that Israel allow Palestinians sovereignty over a site in the Old City in Jerusalem that is holy to both Muslims and Jews. The site is known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
In exchange for the Israeli compromise, the Clinton proposal asked the Palestinian Authority to abandon its claim to the so-called right of return.
Neither side agreed with the terms.
"You know, we can't impose a peace, we shouldn't impose a peace. It won't work if we do. But we can help get the politics right, and if they want a security guarantee, we ought to give it to them."
Discussing the war in Iraq, Clinton said he believed the United States should have allowed U.N. weapons inspectors to finish their work there before launching an attack.
Clinton also said he believes the United States should have moved more quickly to "internationalize" the war.
"And that would have required us early on letting the United Nations have a say in the political decisions, opening the contracts up to people other than Americans and their allies and just basically trying to say 'OK, Saddam's gone we need everybody's help to make it right.' "
According to Clinton, the Bush administration squandered a chance to lead other nations in a "united front against terror" by waging a unilateral war on Iraq and building on the impression that America cooperates only when it must.
However, he said he expects the United States will now receive more help from NATO allies.
"I say again, whether I agree with everything that's been done or not, all Americans and just about everybody in the world has a stake now in the success of this Iraqi enterprise."
