PRESIDENT George W. Bush has a faulty calendar and questionable optimism when it comes to the Mideast. By his original reckoning, an elusive peace should have happened three years ago and a democratic Palestinian state should now be living in harmony with longtime enemy Israel. That was the hopeful timetable prescribed in the 2003 Mideast strategy known as the “road map.” Of course, it did not happen. Instead of a historic reconciliation, tensions flared, more violence erupted and bloodshed brought grief and deepened generations-old hatreds, particularly on the Palestinian side, which suffered disproportionately heavy casualties. So, Bush reset his timetable and promised to get engaged in the tedious peacemaking process that he largely avoided during most of his presidency. Tuesday, he embarked on the Mideast tour to try again. Undaunted by the missed deadline, he already had set an ambitious target for an agreement about 250 days from now, reaching for a peace deal that has eluded other administrations that invested more time, energy and prestige than his administration has. Nearly six months after the new process was launched in Annapolis, Maryland, there is little sign of progress and widespread skepticism about reaching an accord. “It's hard to remember a less auspicious time to pursue Arab-Israeli peacemaking than right now,” said Jon Alterman, director of the Mideast program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The politics on the ground are absolutely miserable. US power and influence are at a low ebb in the region.” Bush's new push comes when he visits Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt beginning Wednesday. It is his second trip to the region this year and holds little promise of any breakthrough. The White House says Bush, once again, will ask the Saudis to increase oil production to ease soaring prices for consumers. Bush made a similar plea in January. All of the key players in the peace talks have weak hands that make a major agreement unlikely before Bush leaves office in January. With his approval ratings near historic lows, Bush is struggling with a sickly economy, an unpopular war in Iraq and efforts by Iran to spread its influence. The seizure of western Beirut by Shiite Hezbollah fighters backed by Syria and Iran humiliated the American-backed government in Lebanon last week and posed more troubles for the White House. On Monday, fresh heavy fighting broke out between government supporters and opponents in Lebanon's north. The tense situation on the eve of Bush's trip is “deeply troubling to the president,” his spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said Monday. “You can bet this is a topic that will come up” as the president meets with leaders in the region, she said. Later, Bush issued a statement condemning “Hezbollah's recent efforts, and those of their foreign sponsors in Tehran and Damascus, to use violence and intimidation to bend the government and people of Lebanon to their will.” He said the US would stand behind Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's government and continue to provide assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces. “The international community will not allow the Iranian and Syrian regimes, via their proxies, to return Lebanon to foreign domination and control,” Bush said. And in an interview with Al-Arabiya television, Bush acknowledged that a planned meeting with Prime Minister Siniora in Egypt as part of his Mideast trip might have to be scrapped, with Siniora under siege. “I don't know, we'll see. I'd like to meet him. And we'll just have to deal with that when I get over there,” Bush said. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also are hamstrung. Both leaders must manage large political factions that distrust a peace process that would require difficult compromises on core issues, such as the final borders of a Palestinian state, the status of occupied Jerusalem and the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees who lost homes during Israel's war of independence in 1948. Olmert is the target of a criminal investigation, his fifth in two years, and has said he will resign if indicted. The Palestinians are riven by physical and political divisions between Gaza, under control of Hamas, and the West Bank, where Abbas' Fatah movement is split. For Abbas, in particular, the longer the talks stretch out without result the worse his political footing becomes at home. With no visible sign of progress in secret talks, the Bush administration has told Israeli and Palestinian leaders they need to show that their efforts are bearing fruit soon or risk a devastating loss of public support for the process. “The negotiations are like mushrooms. They can only grow in the dark,” said Martin Indyk, ambassador to Israel in the Clinton administration and a US negotiator during unsuccessful efforts in 2000 to mediate an agreement. “What's bad is that things that should be visible are not.” He said Israel has failed to halt settlement activity or dismantle roadblocks impeding movement in the West Bank and that the Palestinians have not seen much improvements from promised economic aid. “There doesn't seem to be anything tangible that the president is going to be able to point to,” said Indyk, now a Mideast scholar at the Brookings Institution. Even the White House concedes that progress has been “more halting” than Bush would like. “He's not involved,” Indyk said of Bush. “That's part of the problem. He takes an arms-length approach to the negotiations, which assumes that the Israelis and Palestinians can be left to their own devices to work out an agreement. I just don't think that's going to work.” Daniel Levy, another Mideast expert, said Bush is not pressuring the parties to get an agreement. “I don't think either side feels that there is a president here or a team that would crack heads if necessary and carry this over the finish line,” said Levy, Mideast analyst for The Century Foundation and a former Israeli peace negotiator. He envisions Bush eventually giving a speech saying that the United States will not try to impose a settlement and that he is handing over a serious set of negotiations to his successor. But Bush insists the talks can succeed. “I'm still as optimistic as I was after Annapolis,” Bush said last month after meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah II. “The president is optimistic because he thinks his job is to be optimistic,” said Alterman, the CSIS expert. “Diplomats are often optimistic in public and pessimistic in private. It seems to be embedded in their DNA. And I think this president is just an optimistic person.” – AP __
