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Ex-Senator and Lebanese American George Mitchell Considered as Envoy to Mideast
People close to Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday that George J. Mitchell, a former Senate majority leader and the chairman of a Middle East peace commission in 2001, was a leading candidate to be the Obama administration’s special envoy to the Middle East.
The appointment of Mr. Mitchell, a seasoned and well-regarded negotiator, would signal that President-elect Barack Obama was attaching a high priority to the Middle East and the current Gaza crisis from his first days in office. Obama transition officials declined to comment on Mr. Mitchell, but David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, told CNN on Sunday that Mr. Obama would move quickly to address the instability in the Middle East and hoped that the new cease-fires in Gaza would last.
“Let me say that all of us are hopeful that a cessation of violence will hold,” Mr. Axelrod said.
People close to Mrs. Clinton, who is expected to be confirmed soon after Mr. Obama’s inauguration, said it was not clear how soon she would travel to the region. The sources asked not to be named because discussions about the job were still under way.
Early trips to Europe and the Middle East are traditional for modern secretaries of state, but complicating matters are the Feb. 10 Israeli elections and a concern that Mrs. Clinton not be seen as siding with one potential prime minister over others.
“Senator Clinton has no plans for travel, and in any event, it would be premature to discuss any potential travel to the region prior to the Senate considering her nomination,” said Brooke Anderson, the national security spokeswoman for the Obama transition team.
Middle East analysts said it was also unclear what role Mrs. Clinton would play in the indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas sponsored by Presidents Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Nicolas Sarkozy of France. “They’re going to have to assess whether her involvement is appropriate at that point,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel. “If the Egyptians essentially have it under control, it may not be necessary for her to immediately go out there. What she doesn’t want to do is look like she’s showboating and then the rockets start falling the minute she comes back.”
Mr. Mitchell, 75, was appointed in 2000, in the waning days of the Clinton administration, to lead an international commission to investigate the causes of violence in the Middle East. He released a report in the spring of 2001, during the early days of the Bush administration, that called for a freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank and a Palestinian crackdown on terrorism.
Other Middle East specialists said Sunday that if Mr. Mitchell was named to the job, he would be seen by both sides as a tougher but more balanced negotiator than recent envoys, which could make some Israelis nervous. Mr. Mitchell has Lebanese as well as Irish roots: his father, Joseph Kilroy, was an orphan adopted by a Lebanese family whose Arabic name had been anglicized to Mitchell, and Mr. Mitchell was raised a Maronite Catholic by his Lebanese mother.
The appointment of Mr. Mitchell would be a strong suggestion “that Obama is going to free himself of the exclusive relationship that we’ve had with the Israelis,” said Aaron David Miller, a public policy analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center.
“This is the clearest indication to me that they’re trying to inject more balance into the Israeli-U.S. relationship,” he said.
Mr. Miller also said that Mr. Mitchell’s appointment might mean less influence for Mrs. Clinton in one of the most critical diplomatic efforts of her new job. “This is not like picking a Foreign Service officer who will be managed by Hillary,” Mr. Miller said. “He is not going to undercut the secretary of state, and he may well report through her to Obama. But picking Mitchell would seem to sideline the secretary of state on one of the sexiest and most politically resonant issues in her brief.”
Other people who have been mentioned as possibilities for the job include Richard N. Haass, a State Department official during President Bush’s first term and now president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Daniel C. Kurtzer, who served as United States ambassador to Egypt and then Israel.
Elisabeth Bumiller
New York Times
Picture caption:
Senator Geoege Mitchell
