US makes two major Mideast moves

This week, the US made two bold moves that could begin to reframe Arab perceptions about its Middle East role:

• Washington unveiled the Israeli-Palestinian "road map" for peace, an ambitious blueprint for ending 31 months of violence and establishing a Palestinian state.

• The US announced that it will close down most of its military operations in Saudi Arabia - a thorn in the side of Muslims offended by the presence of "infidel" troops near Islam's holiest sites - and move them to Qatar.

Coming so soon after the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the beginning of reconstruction efforts in Iraq, these two steps are welcomed by the US's Arab allies in the region. Arab leaders, painfully aware of how out of tune they are with their increasingly anti-American populations, are eager to show some gains for their close ties with the US.

But the US and its allies face an Arab public still deeply skeptical about American intentions in the region. Such attitudes will take time - and US follow-through on the Israeli-Palestinian road map - to change.

"The general feeling is, there will be new order, but not one which will serve the Arab people," says Joost Hiltermann, the Jordan based Middle East project director for the think tank International Crisis Group (ICG).

"The road map is an important step, but highly deficient really, and basically a watered-down version what could have been. The departure of the troops from Saudi Arabia meanwhile, is seen as symbolic. People here are very cynical."

The supposed gains of the US are illusory, say some analysts. Even the quick, low-casualty war in Iraq - and this week's shooting of demonstrators in Fallujah, Iraq - have only succeeded in alienating Arabs and injecting the region with a new surge of militant fundamentalism.

"What road? What vehicle? What justice? Its all nonsense and hypocrisy," says Samar Aloul, a young Palestinian refugee in Jordan. "How I wish I were wrong."

The unveiled road map, says Abdel Halem Qandel, editor in chief of Egypt's opposition Al-Araby newspaper: "...satisfies the maximum demands for Israelis and the minimum for the Palestinians. It tries to give the impression that there is a kind of justice somewhere," he says, "...but it is the same old story."

Others were even harsher in dismissing the road map, the unveiling of which coincided with the inauguration of new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who vowed to end attacks on Israelis. "The plan is a bribe," says Jamil Abu-Bakr, a leading member of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood Movement. "The Americans think the Arabs might forget the pain of war in Iraq and stop fighting the US or Israeli occupiers ... but this bribe does not impress us at all. We are only more angry."

Some experts, meanwhile, also view the move to pull 5,000 US troops out of Saudi Arabia by the end of the summer with cynical eyes. "It reduces America's dependence on Saudi Arabia ... and throws open the opportunity for Iraq to become America's favorite base in the region," defense analyst Paul Beaver told Reuters.

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