This past summer, President George W Bush extended a hand where he never has before, calling for a Middle East conference to find a solution to the long-moribund Palestinian-Israeli peace process. This time, says US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, her boss expects results. Yet as with most of Washington’s diplomatic overtures to the region over the last seven years, Bush’s recent dema-nds for a “viable Palestinian state” — which critics argue simply aim to spit-shine an already tarnished presidential legacy — may crumble under the weight of stark realities on the ground.

Division of the Palestinian territories appears to be hardening. Israel on Wednesday declared the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip an “enemy entity” and said it would cut back power and fuel supplies to the economically strangled territory, a move that drew condemnation from Hamas as well as from US-supported Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Islamist group Hamas, which won parliament elections in 2005 only to be isolated by the West, violently seized control of Gaza in June and has been locked in a power struggle with Abbas’s Fatah group, which controls the West Bank. Israel’s recent foray into Syria — which the US seems eager to link to a Syrian-North Korean nuclear venture — has further fanned the flames of regional conflict. This week’s assassination of anti-Syrian Christian lawmaker Antonie Ghanem in Beirut raises political tensions in Lebanon just ahead of the country’s scheduled presidential elections. Amidst this, Bush plans to lift the curtain on his swan-song diplomatic venture with a familiar cast of regional characters (heroes and villains, moderates and extremists) assembled in the wings. On one side, the affable Abbas, as well as other “moderate” Arab leaders who, according to Bush, “can show themselves to be the equals of peacemakers like [former Egyptian leader] Anwar Sadat and King Hussein of Jordan.”

On the other, the “forces of radicalism and violence”: Hamas, Syria, and Iran. For much of his presidency, Bush has avoided direct engagement in peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, and has refused to press Israel to dismantle settlements in the West Bank. He has rarely met with Palestinian counterparts to discuss a future Palestinian state. And while Bush may view the isolation of Hamas, and the more than one million Palestinians who live in Gaza, as the “window of opportunity” to push for a substantive peace deal, many analysts believe the effort is doomed as long as Washington continues to ignore the region’s key players.

The actual goals of the November peace conference remain ambiguous at best. In a press conference with Abbas in Ramallah earlier this week, Rice discussed finding “a common set of principles” toward a “political horizon,” to “support and advance the negotiations” along the “bi-lateral track.” It is precisely this vagueness that appears to be driving regional actors to distraction.

It remains to be seen what Bush Jr. hopes to accomplish this November. After introducing the plan in July, he has been noticeably absent from the process, and the spotlight has

fallen exclusively on Rice. Will the tandem orchestrate a graceful swan dive and redeem the Bush administration’s sinking Middle East policy, or will they — as they have many times before — belly-flop? — IPS