The tables have turned between the United States and the Arab World. Unlike previous times, the Americans, senior Americans that is, like Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, are nowadays frequent visitors to various Arab capitals pleading for their support in rescuing the prestige of the mighty US.
In previous decades, it was the Arab leaders who have tip-toed to Washington in the hope of pleading their case before a recalcitrant US administration, which more often than not was influenced by various interest groups, often the Zionist lobby. The US administrations always considered the Arabs to be in their hip pocket, and to a large extent they were.
What has brought this turnaround in the relationship, if indeed is the case, has been the Bush administration's disastrous foreign policy, ranging from ill-considered occupation of Iraq, which began more than four years ago, and its failure to do anything significant toward resolving the region's simmering conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis.
This is not to diminish the nuclear ambitions of Iran and more recently the power struggle underway in Turkey between Islamists and secularists, the latter supported by the military - a situation that could have serious repercussions in the region if the former win the upcoming elections.
In a lengthy but perceptive article in this month's Atlantic Journal about US foreign policy and the conflicts among the decision-makers at the White House and the State Department Secretary, Rice surprisingly concedes at one point that "as a practical matter of diplomacy" she does not have an "omnibus solution" to region's problems.
The author, David Samuels, paraphrases her response: It would be hard to cut a deal that would persuade Iran to renounce its nuclear ambitions, and would stabilize Iraq, guarantee Israel's security, and create a functioning Palestinian state.
All agree that neither she nor Cheney have a magic wand.
But why should either Rice or Cheney expect the states he had just visited, members of the Arab Quartet - a label that some Arab leaders resent - that is, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan -would be willing to risk a wider conflict with their neighbors in order to safeguard the legacy of George W. Bush at a time when no serious attention was given to major Arab concerns.
The Atlantic Monthly was cut and dry in its explanation. "The key to Rice's new Middle Eastern strategy, which some administration officials hope will end in a 'grand bargain' that will stabilize Iraq, keep the Syrians out of Lebanon, and force Iran to give up its ambitions to build a nuclear bomb, lies in a new drive to create a Palestine state.
"This is the price that Saudi Arabia and other Arab states are demanding if they are to support the administration's stance on Iraq and Iran.
"For this diplomatic gambit to succeed, Rice will need to make swift progress towards solving a conflict where the prospects for peace look dimmer than they have at any point in the last 20 years, and where administration policy has lurched from failure to failure since she began her tenure as secretary of state."
When Ehud Olmert was in the midst of a raucous outcry in Israel after the publication of the preliminary investigation into his lackluster war on Lebanon, Rice surprisingly cancelled her scheduled follow-up meeting with the Israeli leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas - a decision that was severely criticized in Washington, especially by the Americans for Peace Now (APN).
"When the US disengages from efforts to achieve Middle East peace," an APN statement said, "the situation on the ground only gets worse, in terms of deteriorating security, rising extremism, and further marginalization of moderate voices." It added, "The pursuit of Middle East is not for the irresolute or faint-of-heart".
The urgency was likewise underlined by King Abdullah in his talks earlier this week with Cheney in Aqaba. "Time is not on anyone's side," the Jordanian monarch reminded Cheney, a point he had stressed earlier in an interview with the Egyptian paper Al-Ahram.
"Circumstances and events in the region impose on everyone the need to move fast to stop the situation from deteriorating further. If it continues, God forbid, it will lead to dark and painful outcomes."
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