Bush's Next Step? Who Knows?

Helene Cooper writes in the New York Times that "the Rice approach to Middle East diplomacy is far more restrained than that of her predecessors, and it consists of pushing Israel -- as well as her boss, President Bush -- only so far, while putting off the big, hard fights until the end. . . .

"Mr. Bush's speech, while calling for a Palestinian state and promising that he would do whatever he could to help things along, was notable in that he explicitly took on only one of the core issues, the fate of Palestinian refugees, and, on that issue, sided with Israel.

"Negotiations are about compromise, and some foreign policy specialists say Ms. Rice should have pressed Mr. Bush to back the Palestinians on something in return. For instance, Mr. Bush could have followed up his comments referring to Israel 'as a homeland for the Jewish people' with language about territorial compensation, or land swaps, for some of the large Israeli settlement blocks in the West Bank that Israel would like to keep. He did not.

"Mr. Bush could have said Jerusalem would serve as the capital of two states. He did not.

"He could have said there would be compensation and resettlement for the Palestinian refugees. He did not do that either.

"Middle East specialists are saying that if Ms. Rice is to succeed in actually brokering a peace deal, she will have to get Mr. Bush to push Israel to agree to all of that and much more in the give and take of the haggling to come."

A Russian Gambit?

Robin Wright and Michael Abramowitz write in The Washington Post: "Russia and the United States are tentatively planning a second Middle East peace conference, in Moscow in early 2008, with major parties hoping to begin a comprehensive peace effort that would include direct talks between Israel and Syria, according to U.S., Russian, Arab and European officials.

"Syria's delegate to this week's talks in Annapolis said yesterday that Damascus wants a Moscow gathering in order to begin negotiations between Syria and Israel over the Golan Heights, a border region seized by Israel during the 1967 war. 'It is our hope that we can revive the Syrian track in Moscow,' Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mekdad said in an interview before departing Washington.

"Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert indicated that he hopes at some point to resume talks with Syria but cautioned that the time is not yet ripe. He said Syria must change its behavior, notably its support for Lebanon's Shiite militia Hezbollah."

And it's not at all clear Bush is in on the plan.

Here he is on CNN yesterday:

Blitzer: "But do you think there's an opportunity, now, for the Israelis and the Syrians to negotiate a deal over the Golan Heights?"