LONDON: In the Middle East maelstrom all parties acknowledge one fixed point: forceful US diplomatic engagement is essential if the central Israel-Palestine conflict is ever to be resolved.

But far from taking the lead over the past four years, the Bush administration has been mostly led by the nose. The man responsible for this extraordinary feat is Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon.

Mr Sharon was running a "war on terror" when George Bush was still running a baseball team in Texas. So not surprisingly, perhaps, it is Mr Bush who, since 9/11, has followed Mr Sharon's example, rather than the other way around.

In his many visits to the Bush White House Mr Sharon has exerted telling influence on America's post-9/11 agenda. Knowing Mr Bush was bent on war in Iraq, he helpfully highlighted Saddam Hussein's links to terrorist groups and financial aid to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Now he eggs on the US in its confrontations with Israel's enemies, Iran and Syria.

It was Israel that, as far back as 1967, perfected strategies of preventive war and pre-emptive strikes. It is Mr Sharon, not Mr Bush, who is the present master of the targeted assassination and mass detention without trial. It is Israeli military tactics that the US now apes in Falluja and Sadr City.

Deeming him unreliable, Mr Sharon refused to deal with the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat; and Mr Bush followed suit. His insistence on absolute security as a precondition for negotiations and his contemptuous dismissal of contrary UN and European views won support and a broader, damaging emulation in Washington.

Most of all, Mr Sharon's basic contention, that the homeland is under attack by ruthless forces bent on its utter destruction, has been adopted wholesale by Mr Bush and applied to the US. These politics of fear now form a central plank in Mr Bush's re- election platform.

Brent Scowcroft, the national security veteran, recently described Mr Bush as "mesmerized" by the Israeli leader. And for the most part, it does indeed appear that Sharon policy becomes Bush policy, rather than vice-versa.

Whether the issue is Israel's illegal security fence, unilateral disengagement from Gaza, expanding West Bank settlements, the fate of the moribund "roadmap" for peace, or vetoes at the UN, Mr Sharon calls the shots. He has the world's only superpower dancing to his discordant tune.

Unless Mr Sharon loses office - a not-impossible scenario given the rebellion in his Likud party over Gaza - this well- established dynamic is unlikely to change during a second Bush term.

Dismayingly for the Palestinians and others opposed to Mr Sharon's policies, it also seems unlikely that a Kerry presidential victory would make any significant difference. Like Mr Bush, Mr Kerry in theory supports a viable Palestinian state.

"The conflict will not be an afterthought but a priority," he has said. But the Democrat also wants a new Palestinian leadership as a precondition for progress. He backs Mr Sharon's Gaza withdrawal plan, rejects the right of return, and says it is "unrealistic" to try to reinstate the 1949 armistice lines.

These positions, coupled with his strongly pro-Israel Senate record, hardly suggest an evenhanded approach - or the kind of forceful US engagement so lacking under Mr Bush.

Mr Kerry told the Anti-Defamation League in May: "When I am president of the United States, my promise to the people of Israel will be this: we will never pressure you to compromise your security.

"We will never expect you to negotiate for peace without a credible partner. And we will always work to provide political, military and economic help for your fight against terror.

"Building a stronger Israel and a stronger America means working together to combat the terror that threatens us all."

Not much wiggle-room there; and no corresponding list of promises for the Palestinians. Mr Bush could not have said it better. As for the guileful Mr Sharon, he must be laughing all the way to the West Bank.-Dawn/The Guardian News Service.