Blair begins envoy role

Former British prime minister Tony Blair gets down to business as Mideast envoy this week.

He arrives just as the Palestinian uprising has fizzled and Israel says it is ready to work with a moderate leadership after seven years of stalemate.

Mr Blair will engage in talks with both sides today, but he has only a limited mandate, and despite his star appeal, he could quickly become one in a long succession of well-meaning, yet ultimately ineffective mediators.

A word of caution came from James Wolfensohn, Mr Blair's predecessor as envoy of the diplomatic Quartet, made up of the US, the UN, the EU and Russia.

In 2005, Wolfensohn, a former World Bank president, was asked to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza after Israel's pullout from the area.

Wolfensohn accomplished less than he had hoped and saw the last of his achievements - creating a gateway to the world for fenced-in Gazans - unravel after the Islamic militant Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza last month.

Mr Wolfensohn told the Israeli daily Haaretz that while he made some mistakes, his main problem had been lack of authority.

The US dominates the Quartet, he noted.

"There was never a desire on the part of the Americans to give up control of the (peace) negotiations, and I would doubt that in the eyes of (senior US State Department official) Elliot Abrams and the State Department team I was ever anything but a nuisance," Haaretz quoted him as saying.

Mr Blair has also been given a relatively limited assignment: to prepare the ground for a Palestinian state by encouraging reform, economic development and institution-building. There is no mention of trying to help broker a final peace deal.

Yesterday, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad met in Jerusalem with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Palestinian officials said they discussed Mr Blair's mission and other initiatives.

Dan Kurtzer, a former US ambassador to Israel, said the Bush administrations would hamstring the new envoy.

"Mr Blair is entering the post with the exact same constraints that Wolfensohn did, which is a United States that says: 'You will not engage in any issues related to final status. You are only going to deal with Palestinian institution building'," Mr Kurtzer said. "If he doesn't expand his mandate, I would not be optimistic."

Even in his limited role, Mr Blair will have to confine his work to the West Bank, since the international community continues to shun Hamas, now in control of Gaza.