WASHINGTON: The question is, is US President George W. Bush really serious — serious enough to put real pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon — about implementing the much-heralded “roadmap” to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians?

If not, most analysts here believe, the latest attempt to resolve a 55-year-old problem is doomed from the outset. But views about the question are surprisingly varied here in Washington. Conventional wisdom before Bush’s travels to the Middle East, which culminated in his summit at Aqaba with Sharon and new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, held that Sharon and his Likud Party had little to fear.

The prevailing belief was that Bush would go through the motions of trying to implement the roadmap to satisfy Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has long argued that western credibility in the region depends on Washington resolving the conflict more or less even-handedly. There was no sense that Bush was himself committed to the plan.

In this view, the victory in Iraq confirmed the domination over US policy of the pro-Likud hardliners in the administration, centred in the offices of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Their rhetoric echoed the views of neo-conservatives outside the administration, who have been arguing since the attacks of Sept 11, 2001, that the “war on terrorism” and Israel’s fight against the Palestinians were one and the same.

After all, it was Rumsfeld who referred to the West Bank and Gaza last year as the “so-called Occupied Territories”, a phrase denoting an identity of views with the Jewish settler movement, one of whose spokesmen, Mark Zell, is Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith’s law partner. Cheney and his powerful chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, have also made no secret of their lack of sympathy for the Palestinian cause.

They and their allies outside the administration, including the former chairman of the Defence Policy Board (DPB), Richard Perle, ‘Weekly Standard’ Editor William Kristol, and Center for Security Policy Director Frank Gaffney — to name just a few — had been pouring scorn over the roadmap, which Washington worked out with the European Union (EU), Russia, and the UN, since even before it was officially handed to the two parties.

Finally, the Republican president’s chief political adviser, Karl Rove, has been salivating over the fast-rising approval ratings for Bush among US Jews, a constituency that traditionally provides a major portion of campaign funding for Democratic presidential candidates.

But in the last two weeks, Bush has surprised just about everyone with his stated determination to give the roadmap a serious go. “I believe peace is possible, and I believe that I have ... responsibilities, now that the conditions are such, to move the process forward,” he said, just before leaving for Europe and the Middle East last month.

Once there, he not only promised to “ride herd” over both Sharon and Abbas to see the plan implemented, he also appointed national security advisor and his closest foreign-policy counsellor, Condoleezza Rice, to oversee the process.

“Bush’s welcome personal immersion in Middle East peace diplomacy holds out the hope of significant changes in Israeli policy, as evidenced by the fact that (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon persuaded his government to accept the roadmap despite his overt hostility to it,” noted Henry Siegman, a top Clinton adviser now with the Council on Foreign Relations, in a column in the ‘International Herald Tribune’.

Sharon himself seemed to sense Bush’s newfound commitment and, apparently determined not to alienate the most pro-Israel US president in history, has shown unexpected flexibility.

While he retains the 14 “reservations” about the roadmap that he voiced before Bush’s trip, his statements and behaviour over the last two weeks have themselves surprised both US analysts and angered — even panicked — many of his Likud supporters.

His declaration 10 days ago that Israel’s presence in the Palestinian territories amounted to “occupation” — previously a taboo word among right-wing Likudniks — and that Israeli control over 3.5 million Palestinians was neither desirable nor sustainable was seen by many as an historic breakthrough.

Similarly, Sharon’s decision to proceed with dismantling a dozen illegal Jewish outposts — set up by settlers in the West Bank over the past 30 months — as he promised Bush he would do at Aqaba, in spite of Sunday’s joint operation by three Palestinian militant groups that killed five Israeli soldiers in Gaza, was also out of character.

Faced with such an attack in the past, Sharon would almost certainly have frozen any compliance with the peace process, and also launched a ferocious attack on targets alleged to have been involved in the Sunday operation.

Indeed, his recent manoeuvres have spurred speculation similar to that raised by Bush’s actions. Is he serious about moving toward a real peace agreement, or are these simply tactics designed to co-opt Washington and buy time until the agreement collapses due to non-compliance by the Palestinians?

“At some point, he’s got to decide whether it’s Sharon the survivor or Sharon the statesman,” said Jean AbiNader, managing director of the Arab-American Institute here. “I think there’s still warring going on inside him about that.”

Another possibility is that Sharon believes that, by co-operating with Bush, he will eventually force Abbas to crack down hard on the militant opposition and provoke a civil war among Palestinians — a scenario about which neo-conservative ‘New York Times’ columnist William Safire, who speaks frequently with Sharon, has written favourably more than once.

To Siegman, the proof of both Bush’s and Sharon’s intentions lies with the fate of the existing Jewish settlements, whose growth is supposed to be frozen at the plan’s outset. Bush reportedly asked Sharon at Aqaba if he would commit to a freeze, but Sharon demurred, insisting that such a move was more than the political traffic would bear.

To Sharon’s great relief, Bush failed to press the issue, not only depriving Abbas of a tangible gain to take back home, but also casting renewed doubt on Bush’s determination.

If Bush cannot deliver Sharon on settlements, according to Siegman, then it would be ‘absurd’ for Washington to expect Abbas to confront Palestinians militants. “More than any other factor, settlements are responsible for Palestinian violence and for the absence of popular Palestinian opposition to terrorist groups.”—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.