BY MICHAEL TODD | He’s a U.S. diplomat who spent most of his career trying to find peace in the Mideast, and he now runs Seeds of Peace, a program that teaches youths on both sides of the divide leadership skills needed to avoid war. But Aaron David Miller doesn’t see either approach bringing peace.

“It’s not the diplomats who can or will regulate what goes on between human beings. Seeds of Peace cannot end the Palestinian conflict, but neither can the diplomats.”

Still, there’s no despair in the adviser on Arab-Israeli negotiations to six secretaries of state. Quoting President Kennedy, he calls himself “an idealist without illusions.”

“I think that’s the only approach to take up because you can’t give up … but you must go in with your eyes open.”

Mr. Miller will bring that pragmatic idealism to UCSB’s Corwin Pavilion on Wednesday when he addresses “Arab-Israeli Peacemaking” in a free lecture. The author of three books on the Mideast, he served in the State Department for two decades formulating U.S. policy in the region. His most recent posting, as senior adviser for Arab-Israeli negotiations, ended when he took the presidency of Seeds of Peace in January 2003.

In his book “The Missing Peace,” U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, Mr. Miller’s boss for a dozen years, assessed his deputy: “He was Jewish and in no small part that helped shape his personal commitment to peace. He deeply believed in Israel’s moral legitimacy, while also understanding the profound sense of grievance that Palestinians felt. Perhaps, because of his training as a historian, Aaron always tried to understand what was going on in terms of basic trends … He was also guided by his own sense of fairness, believing instinctively that the Palestinians should not be treated differently from any other Arab party. Aaron’s analysis was thoughtful, logical and honest. One thing I knew for sure: With Aaron, I would have a deputy who would never shy away from expressing the truth as he understood it, no matter what the audience.”

Speaking via telephone from the New York offices of Seeds for Peace, Mr. Miller demonstrated that his brand of diplomacy still brooks no evasions of hard truths, even about his own legacy.

“For me, the Arab-Israeli conflict has never been a morality play, no good vs. bad,” he said. “It’s not some sort of Manichean drama of light vs. dark.”

Instead, it’s a matter of meeting and dealing with competing needs that must be reconciled.

“My moral and political point of departure was not rooted in that I am an American Jew,” he contends. Instead, his interests were in furthering U.S. international influence. That meant, quite simply, “You really have to look at both sides’ needs,” he said.

His historian’s dispassion allows him to criticize both the current Bush administration’s “disengagement” with the “over-involvement of the Clinton administration.” The latter occurred under his watch.

“Three or four tactical and strategic mistakes were made during the Clinton administration, and those enabled the Palestinians and the Israelis to, I think, pursue policies that couldn’t succeed.”

In short, he said, “we were not tough enough on both sides.”

The recent death of Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat and the election of Mahmoud Abbas as his successor provide a fresh baseline for peace, he suggested.

“I think the passing of Yassir Arafat offers a chance for the Palestinians for the first time in their history to move from a politics based on personality to a politics based on legitimacy.” But legitimacy requires results, Mr. Miller stressed. One thing that isn’t needed, he said, is a “mad rush” back to the negotiating table. “What is needed is a series of unilateral actions (by both sides) that are credible and build trust … Any notion of going back to permanent status negotiations are not just foolish but a catastrophe.”

Mr. Miller’s suspicion about the favored weapon in the arsenal of traditional diplomacy is reflected in how he views two signal moments in the peace process — the Oslo accords, a 1993 agreement between Mr. Arafat and the late Yitzhak Rabin that codified Palestinian sovereignty, and the most recent nuts-and-bolts meeting between Mr. Abbas (one of the architects of Oslo) and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at Sharm el Sheik, Egypt.

“Oslo was a religion for believers,” Mr. Miller said. “Sharm el Sheik was a business proposition for pragmatists.”

Unstated is that the United States must be a part of the solution.

“While the time is long past when the U.S. can single-handedly solve the problem, when it comes time, there can be only one mediator. The United States is the only power in the international system that enjoys the trust and confidence of both sides,” he said.

Asked if Arabs trust the United States in a time of street protests and car bombs, Mr. Miller replied, “I do not believe, despite our diminished credibility, that the Arab world has given up on us.”

In that vein, he rejected additional “projection of American military power” in the region, although he did counsel the United States using “sunlight as the best disinfectant” in hounding Syria and Iran.

What he embraces, both as diplomat and president of Seeds of Peace, is “transformational diplomacy” to erode the “generational” conflict between Arabs and Israelis.

“Even if political agreements are reached, those will take years to take effect as anything we would recognize as peace.”

And that’s where Seeds of Peace comes in. The organization, founded in 1993, takes up to 500 youths from Israel and predominantly Muslim countries and teaches them leadership skills at a camp in Maine.

“We’re building for the next generation,” Mr. Miller said, unveiling his idealism. “Only individuals can turn back and reshape the crueler aspects of history.”