Bush's key role as a summiteer

"What the president will do is talk to the assembled leaders about their responsibilities and about our responsibilities to try to push forward the peace," said National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice at a briefing for reporters last week.

Whatever their outcome, the talks represent something of a change in the administration's previous position that the impetus for peace in the Mideast must come from the parties themselves.

No one can force Israel and its adversaries to a settlement. For peace to be lasting, it much be something in which the parties wholeheartedly believe.

But in a situation where the sides are so suspicious of each other - and so riven by their own internal politics - a push from a larger power might be necessary, according to some experts in the region.

The US seeks "to influence the outcome of conflicts everywhere. The notion that only the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is exempt from that seems to me irrational," says Henry Siegman, director of the US/Middle East Project at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Indeed, the moment Bush indicated he would be seriously involved in the matter, things began to happen, says Mr. Siegman.

Sharon accepted the roadmap, albeit while voicing reservations about security guarantees and aspects of any final settlement.

On the level of geopolitics, the stakes for Bush in this process are high. He conquered Iraq, in part, to reorder the entire Middle East. Yet without a lasting rapproachment between Israel and its neighbors the region will always be riven with conflict.

In the past US peace efforts have always foundered, in the end, on the mutual suspicions of the parties. But if Sharon really makes some effort to freeze construction of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, and if Abbas can reign in Hamas attacks, suspicions may begin to abate.

"At least the beginnings will have been made," says Klaus Larres, the Henry Kissinger scholar in foreign policy and international relations at the Library of Congress. "That could gradually develop into a real process."

In the weeks and months to come, the White House is unlikely to be satisfied just with talking for talkings' sake, notes Mr. Larres. Whether you like their policies or not, it's clear that "the Bush administration has always been results-oriented," he says.

On the level of domestic politics Bush may be risking less. Conventional wisdom has long held that Jewish voters might punish a US president who was seen to be squeezing Israel for the sake of an accommodation with Palestinians.

But the vast majority of US Jews did not vote for Bush anyway. And many of them are eager for a jump-start to the peace process.

In this context, even if Bush does not succeed "he gets credit for trying," says Mr. Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum.

As always in the Middle East, the next cycle of violence will be the true test of diplomacy. When bombings and retaliation occur "it's very easy to fall back into the old patterns" of hostility, says Rosenberg.

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