WASHINGTON: In the race for the heart and soul of US President George W. Bush, the odds-on favourite, Ariel Sharon, won.

Bush’s long-awaited and often delayed speech on Monday, outlining US proposals for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was so nearly a complete endorsement of the Israeli prime minister’s stance that it almost could have been written in Al Quds.

The US plan calls for new Palestinian leadership and makes clear that only when Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat leaves the political stage will Washington work to create and recognize a Palestinian state.

Perhaps Arafat didn’t have a chance. Bush has never concealed his disdain for the Palestinian leader, whom he has never met or telephoned.

Even so, the US plan could have been different just a week ago when Bush initially planned to outline his proposals. US officials said last week’s suicide bombings “galvanized” Bush and convinced him Arafat must go.

In another sense, Bush himself emerges as a winner, because his speech achieved something that had long eluded him - consistency between his Mideast policy and his global war on terrorism.

And in a passing reference during the short speech, Bush may have revealed the ultimate US goal in pushing for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement — clearing the way for a US effort to topple Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.

Since the September 11 attacks in the United States transformed his presidency, Bush has trod a delicate line between the “moral clarity” of his global war on terrorism and the diplomatic ambiguity of pursuing an even-handed approach in the Middle East.

From the beginning, Sharon sought to pull Bush across that line, linking Israel’s struggle against Arafat’s Palestinian Authority with the US campaign against Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.

US officials shied from such a direct link, criticizing Israel’s policy of targeting Palestinian officials for assassination or sending its military into Palestinian territory after every terrorist attack.

While US support for Israel was strong and unmistakable, Bush in November became the first US president to endorse Palestinian statehood.

Bush was sharply critical of Arafat, saying the Palestinian leader had “disappointed me” and failed to crack down on terrorism within the Palestinian movement. More recently, Bush echoed Sharon’s call for reform in the Palestinian administration, but stopped short of urging Arafat’s ouster.

The ambiguity ended Monday, as Bush opted for “moral clarity” in a manner certain to cheer his conservative supporters at home and the Sharon cabinet in Al Quds.

Bush explicitly linked Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking to the wider war on terrorism, using his “either you’re with us or you’re against us” formula to urge Arab governments to work for a settlement.

He urged Arab leaders, not for the first time, to end incitement against Israel in their media and to denounce suicide bombings. And he said true supporters of peace would stop supporting terrorist groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.

The speech also contained what one official described as “a strong call to isolate Iran” because of its shipments of weapons to the Palestinian territories.

One more thing, Bush said: To prove their desire for peace and opposition to terrorism, Arab governments must “oppose regimes that promote terror, like Iraq.”

US officials have long chafed at the difficulty the Israeli- Palestinian conflict posed to Bush’s desire to win Arab backing for toppling Saddam Hussein. The hope in Washington is that US leadership to resolve the Mideast crisis will gain support among Arabs for action against Iraq.

US officials expressed confidence that Arab governments would cooperate with Bush’s new plan, given his emphasis on improving the living conditions of the Palestinian people through reforming their government.

“The Arab partners, I think, understand our position, and they certainly want a change in the circumstances in the Middle East,” said a senior US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Last week’s suicide bombings served as the last straw prompting Bush to shed diplomatic ambiguity and explicitly endorse Sharon’s call for new Palestinian leadership, the official said.

“The violence did change the character of the speech,” the official said. “It also crystallized again ... the disappointments that we’ve had with the Palestinian leadership, finally you have to say something has to change, something has to be different.”—dpa