Years ago, when the British economist John Maynard Keynes was criticized for changing his views (on government intervention in markets), he replied “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” I recalled that famous quote recently when facts in the Middle East indicated that Israel and Syria are seriously trying to make peace after 60 years of hostility.

If true, this would contradict the view long held by many observers of the Middle East (myself included) that no peace is possible between Israel and its neighbors without the active involvement of the United States. As far as I can see, Israel and Syria are doing this more or less on their own, and in fact against the wishes of the Bush administration.

First, the facts:

1. Turkey, which is trying to carve out a bigger role for itself in the Middle East, has been brokering indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel. Both sides have confirmed that much.
2. A Turkish official quoted in the Israeli press last week said it is now time for direct talks. He said the negotiations would cover the return of the Golan Heights (which Israel took from Syria in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war), creation of a buffer zone, mutual security arrangements and normalization of relations.
3. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been making a number of behind the scenes moves to pave the way for a final agreement. They include a shake-up of the Syrian military and intelligence establishments and strengthening of Syria’s relations with its client state, Lebanon.

Why is this happening now, when Washington is preoccupied with other matters and shows little enthusiasm for improving relations with Assad?

1. As far as I can see, both sides are acting out of their own national interests rather than waiting for a push from Washington. Israel wants to secure its northern borders, and would insist as part of the deal that Syria cut off its support for Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, which fought Israel to a standstill two years ago.
2. Syria would re-establish control over Lebanon (its traditional source of wealth). Assad would also strengthen his domestic support by winning back the Golan Heights.
3. Hezbollah, whose only other real friend is Iran, would be the big loser – and that would please just about everybody else, including all the Arab neighbors. As far as Assad is concerned, Hezbollah is simply a negotiating card, to be discarded when no longer needed.

What would such an agreement mean for the Middle East?

1. For the first time in its history, Israel would be at peace with all of its immediate Arab neighbors. That’s a seismic change.
2. Iran would lose two of its friends and sources of influence in the Middle East, Hezbollah and Syria.
3. The Palestinians would still be out in the cold, unless they can somehow get their act together.

So if such an agreement is in the works, why was Assad acting so hard to get at this week’s big Mediterranean summit in Paris and telling reporters he is in no hurry for a deal? He not only refused to shake the hand of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. He barely acknowledged his presence. That, too, could be a sign that a deal is imminent. If you have ever bought a rug in a Middle East bazaar, you know that the usual tactic is to walk away from a deal until the merchant comes running after you with a final offer. Israeli diplomatic sources, by the way, say Olmert has delivered a message to Assad via the Turks saying it would be a mistake to wait for a new American president before engaging in direct talks.

One other thing:
After 40 years of experience in and out of the Middle East, I am also aware that I may be wildly wrong about all this. I learned long ago to be wary of trying to predict the future in that part of the world. History teaches us that whenever a peace deal seems near in the Middle East, someone will try to blow it to smithereens.

If you read the headlines a few weeks ago, you might have thought the world was on the verge of a major crisis. The media in America and abroad were flooded with speculation about an impending Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, perhaps with American support. The New York Times reported that the Israeli Air Force was gearing up and conducting war games. The price of oil spiked. And some commentators jumped to the conclusion that the world was close to another war.

If that’s what you thought, you were misled. The scare stories masked the fact that after almost three decades of bitter mutual hostility, the United States and Iran are now closer than ever to burying the hatchet.

It’s becoming clear that Washington and Tehran are maneuvering to conclude a grand bargain that will include both Iran’s nuclear program and the future shape of Iraq. If you don’t believe me, just forget the headlines and look at what the two countries are actually doing.

1. Although they have been talking about both subjects through back channels for some time, the dialogue is now becoming public.
2. A week after the leak to the New York Times about the Israeli preparations, the State Department leaked to the Washington Post that the United States is considering a significant upgrade in its diplomatic representation in Tehran. The speedy positive response from Iranian officials indicated they had already been sounded out in private.
3. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, made it publicly clear the Pentagon does not wish to attack Iran, and warned the Israelis to back off. The nation’s top military officer would not have taken such a stand without approval from the White House.
4. A Saudi Arabian newspaper reported that in negotiations with the Iraqis over the future status of American forces in Iraq, the U.S. has dropped its demand to control all Iraqi airspace. If true, that would be a positive gesture toward Iran, which wants Iraq to be a neutral buffer on its border rather than an American satellite.
5. The Iranian government has now given what sounds like a potentially positive (though initially confusing) response to Western offers of economic and technological carrots in return for suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

What we are seeing is a good cop/bad cop operation in which Washington is giving the Iranians a choice between being hit by the Israelis or being flooded with Western goodies. The Iranians may think an Israeli air strike is unlikely, but they cannot be sure it won’t happen if the U.S. were to give Israel a green light.

Besides, Iran’s prime concern is ensuring that Iraq – which engaged Iran in a costly, bloody war for a decade – becomes a stable, non–threatening neighbor. Iran’s nuclear program is secondary, even though most Western governments see it as a potential military threat. Some Western experts believe the Iranians are using it as a bargaining chip to obtain a better deal on Iraq. Whether or not that is true will become apparent when the outlines of an American-Iranian agreement become clear.

Meanwhile, when you read new headlines like the latest, which shout that Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have begun military exercises with a warning that Tel Aviv and American shipping in the Persian Gulf will be prime targets if Iran is attacked – take a breath. Pause and reflect on what is really happening. The Iranians want a deal. Indeed, they need a deal. So does the United States, which is so overstretched in that critical part of the world.

There are likely to be more crises before a final agreement is reached between these two (publicly) bitter enemies. Some parties may try to blow it out of the water. The possibilities for sabotage are endless, but the trend of events seems to be leading to a peaceful conclusion to a 28-year shouting match.

If it happens on his watch, President Bush will have to be given credit for some creative diplomacy. Unkind critics will of course say he could have reached an accommodation with Iran much earlier. But earlier administrations also missed chances to come to terms with the Iranians.

Iran, of course, is the remaining member of the trio of rogue regimes that Mr. Bush dubbed “the axis of evil.” He attacked Iraq on the false grounds that it threatened the world with weapons of mass destruction, and both countries are paying a terrible price for the mistake. He more wisely tried diplomacy to persuade North Korea to give up its small nuclear arsenal, and seems to be succeeding. If he reaches an agreement with Iran, that would give Mr. Bush a success rate of two out of three – a mixed record but perhaps a better legacy than most people expected from this unpopular president.

A few weeks ago I began writing about some of the foreign policy choices and strategic challenges the next American President will face. One of the most profound issues is whether nuclear weapons still have a role in the 21st Century.

Two decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States and Russia are still armed for Armageddon, with hair-trigger arsenals that could end life on earth as we know it. Does this potential for overkill still make sense? Should Senators Obama and McCain be asking whether it is time not only to start seriously downsizing the world’s nuclear arsenals but to think about abolishing them altogether?

Perhaps surprisingly, both candidates seem to agree. Senator Obama says that “America seeks a world in which there are no nuclear weapons.” And Senator McCain gave a recent speech that commits him to the same goal. Indeed, this is an issue that cuts across party lines.

A quarter century ago, President Ronald Reagan declared, "our dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the Earth." And as the former Democrat presidential candidate Senator John Kerry recently pointed out, no less than 17 of the 24 former secretaries of state and defense and national security advisors support moving towards this goal. Western think tanks are already studying the political and technical means by which such an ambitious goal could be reached. Nuclear disarmament is no longer just a banner carried by ban-the-bomb marchers. It’s an idea whose time may have come.

And yet … the public knows almost nothing about this debate and most politicians seem to care little. That’s not surprising because the mainstream media pay so little attention to strategic issues.

Most people do not realize that the United States and most of the world’s major powers accepted not only the long-term goal of nuclear disarmament but also eventual complete disarmament in the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It was part of a deal in which the nuclear powers persuaded the non-nuclear powers not to seek nuclear weapons themselves.

For the most part, the deal has worked. A few countries gave up their nuclear weapons programs. Some got away with building secret nuclear arsenals – either with America’s tacit assent (Israel, Pakistan) or without it (India, North Korea). But the world has not had to face the global spread of nuclear weapons that President John F. Kennedy warned of. "Stop and think for a moment," he said, "what it would mean to have nuclear weapons in so many hands, in the hands of countries large and small, stable and unstable, responsible and irresponsible, scattered throughout the world."

It’s the other part of the deal that has not worked. The nuclear powers have gotten rid of some of the warheads they no longer need (the United States) or can afford (Russia), but they have made no serious moves toward abolishing all of them. Indeed, they have been working to modernize their bombs and in 1999 the U.S. Senate simply refused to ratify the international treaty banning the testing of nuclear weapons. In the eyes of the rest of the world, the American attitude has been “do as I say, not do as I do.”

Opponents of nuclear disarmament point out that the threat of nuclear destruction prevented war between the West and the Soviet Union, and that no one has dared use a nuclear weapon since World War II. But there is no guarantee that will never happen. The only sure way of preventing a nuclear holocaust is complete and verifiable nuclear disarmament.

It would take years of careful study and research to devise the means of ridding the world of nuclear weapons. There must be timetables and verification arrangements, but above all it would take new international political and military arrangements to insure that war between major powers is taken off the table as effectively as it was when nuclear weapons were the major deterrent.

Above all, it would take leadership by the United States to create a new world security system, and a firm commitment by a new American president to lead the way. This is not pie-in-the-sky stuff. It’s the future of our children and grandchildren.

As former Secretary of State Jim Baker – a wise and hard-nosed realist – recently said, “Nuclear disarmament will take decades to achieve. We should begin now.”

Antibes, France
The face of Barak Obama has not yet replaced Che Guevara here as an iconic t-shirt or teenagers’ bedroom wall poster, but he has already become a cult figure for France’s biggest minority. The fact that an African-American has a good shot at winning the most powerful elected office in the world has sent a message of hope to millions of Muslim citizens of African descent who have never felt fully at home in France.

A French magazine that recently ran a story on the Obama phenomenon in France’s ghetto suburbs quotes a schoolgirl whose family came from North Africa: “If he wins, it will be the liberation of all the blacks in the world!” It is easy to dismiss that sort of reaction as teenage hyperbole, but it gives you some idea of the emotional power of Obamania abroad.

French minorities who feel locked in their ghettos see Obama as an antidote to the discrimination that bars them from the best jobs and keeps them underrepresented in government. It’s not just the color of Obama’s skin that counts. Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice never stirred the same kind of excitement here. Obama is seen as a communicator who can reach out and touch people on both sides of racial and religious divisions. His candidacy seems to be having a more positive psychological impact on minorities here than anything the French government has said or done to try to help them. Indeed, most French of North African origin believe their own president, Nicolas Sarkozy, despite the fact that his father is a Hungarian immigrant, promotes anti-immigrant policies

But although they are inspired by what is happening in the American election, French minorities also say the Obama phenomenon could never happen here. Karim Zerabi, a Muslim city councilman in Marseilles, says, “You would have to be crazy to be an Obama in France - people would say you were the candidate of the Arabs, of the Muslims or of the ghettos.” And yet polls show that if the French nation as a whole could vote in the American election, they would overwhelmingly choose Obama. The Obama phenomenon is full of paradoxes.

Above all, Obama is changing the image of the United States - not just here in France, but around the world. He is doing more to restore foreigners’ faith in the American dream than all the propaganda and so-called “public diplomacy” that the U.S. government pumps out.

When it comes to shaping public opinion, actions usually speak louder than words. That has been America’s image problem abroad, especially since the invasion of Iraq and all that followed – the scandal of Abu Ghraib prison, the imprisonment without trial of suspected terrorists at the American prison in Guantanamo Bay, the allegations that the White House authorized the use of torture, and so forth.

The Obama candidacy has not wiped the slate clean, but it has given the world another view of the United States. That may be his most valuable contribution to his country, whether or not he actually wins the election.

We all know that political campaigns do not produce much intelligent debate of important issues, and that few candidates dare tell the public too many hard truths for fear of spoiling their chances of election. But even by the dismally low standards of American politics, both Senator Obama and Senator McCain have failed to give the public a real choice of policies on the conflict in Afghanistan.

There has been no real debate because both candidates seem to share the common view that Afghanistan is a “good” war that the Bush administration and its NATO allies have failed to support fully, and that with more money and manpower, it is winnable.

This simplistic view is – to put it bluntly – a fairy tale. It is a delusion rather than a sound basis on which to build future policy.

First of all, the United States has no agreed definition of what “winning” the Afghan War really means – primarily because America’s goals are so confused. The U.S. did not go to war in Afghanistan so that Afghan girls would be allowed to go to school - however laudable that aim may be. Nation building, the raising of living standards in one of the world’s poorest nations, and even the creation of a democracy in a land wracked by civil war, were not the real reasons American went to war after 9/11. The goal was to smash Al Qaeda and crush the Taliban who supported it.

By any standard, the continuing conflict in Afghanistan is far from resolved and in the long run may not be winnable at a cost Americans are willing to pay. Top American and allied military commanders in Iraq believe it would take at least 15 years to create a stable country and rid it of the Taliban. Neither the American public nor the increasingly reluctant Canadians and Europeans show any signs of the strong resolve that would be needed to support a military campaign that could last for a generation.

The Afghans and their neighbors are no fools. They assume the Americans and their allies will eventually fold their tents and go home. Like the Russians did before them, and the British in the nineteenth century. If the Soviet Union could not pacify Afghanistan with 300,000 troops, and the British could not do it at the height of their imperial power, it is not unreasonable to think that a mere 70,000 U.S. and other international troops will fail as well, and that the Taliban will be back some day. In fact, they are already showing signs of staging a comeback in the south and east of the country.

So the Afghans are paying, at best, lip service to the fragile government that the United States maintains and supports in Kabul, and are keeping their options open with the Taliban. President Hamid Karzai is a likeable, decent sort of person, but not the man you would want to bet the farm on in the dog-eat-dog world of Afghanistan.

Karzai openly accuses his neighbors the Pakistanis – especially their Interservices Intelligence organization - of training and supporting the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters who are trying to undermine his government. The Pakistanis are looking after their own interests, and want a friendly force in Afghanistan after the Americans go home.

What does all this mean for future American policy in that corner of the world? Well, to start with, it means taking a clearer look at the real situation in Afghanistan. Even now, seven years after the United States backed a collection of Afghan tribes and warlords with American air power to help them drive out the Taliban, Afghanistan is a failed state.

1. President Karzai has little power beyond the capital.
2. It is a “narco-state,” producing 90 per cent of the world’s opium.
3. It is extraordinarily corrupt. By some estimates, a third of the Western aid money poured into the country has been lost to corruption.
4. It is far from being pacified. Parts of the famous ring road that Western aid is building to link all sides of the country are too dangerous for all but the bravest to use because the Taliban and other brigands set up road blocks to rob, kidnap and even behead motorists.
5. America’s allies cannot, or will not, provide a substantial increase in troops, so the war in the south and east, where the Taliban are staging a comeback, is becoming an increasingly American effort.

Which candidate is going to tell the American voters all these unpalatable truths? Neither, I suspect. Yet without a clear view of the present conditions, America cannot build a realistic policy on Afghanistan.

Any workable plan would have to involve negotiations with the Taliban. After all, the United States was quietly talking with the Taliban in the Clinton years, when American oil companies were looking for a way to export the oil and gas riches of Central Asia without running pipelines through Russia. It was thought at the time that the Taliban could form an Afghan government that would be friendly to the U.S. and allow the pipelines to transit their country. The State Department was not so choosy then about whom it dealt with or what their democratic credentials were.

The plan would also have to involve Afghanistan’s immediate neighbors, Pakistan and Iran, whose cooperation would be essential in helping stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan. Nation building is not a job the United States should undertake alone.

Finally, Washington should recognize that long term occupation of a foreign country – especially a Muslim country with no tradition of American-style democracy – will not be popular with the natives and will eventually fail. There is a limit to how long the Afghanis and the American public will tolerate the occupation.

The bottom line is that the United States should do the best it can to stabilize Afghanistan, even if that means leaving it with a benign dictatorship, and get out as soon as it decently can.

John McCain and Barack Obama have given voters what sounds like a stark choice on the burning issue of how long American troops should remain in Iraq. But the choice may be more illusory than real. Let me explain.

Senator McCain states that American troops should not be withdrawn before “the Government of Iraq becomes capable of governing itself and safeguarding its people,” and “before Al Qaeda in Iraq is defeated and before a competent, trained and capable Iraqi security force is in place and operating effectively.”

Senator Obama’s plan for Iraq states that “he will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month.” He “will not build any permanent bases in Iraq”, but “if Al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on Al Qaeda.”

McCain’s plan amounts to an open-ended commitment to stay in Iraq until the country’s government gets its act together. Indeed, in a now famous off-the-cuff campaign comment, he said it would be “fine” with him if American troops stayed in Iraq for a “hundred years.” He noted that the U.S. still has troops in Germany and Korea.

Obama’s planned withdrawal, on the contrary, would be carried out with a timetable fixed by Washington, regardless of what the Iraqis may or may not do – with the proviso that some strike forces might be left behind to deal with a resurgence of Al Qaeda. Obama would have “all troops engaged in combat operations out by the end of 2009.”

So … are American voters being given a tough choice or a no brainer? Actually neither. I would suggest that after a new administration takes office next year, the next president will have very little choice at all.

Current troop rotation plans suggest that Mr. Bush expects to keep the level of roughly 140,000 troops in Iraq until the end of his presidency. That means that even under the Obama plan, the next administration will be maintaining more than 100,000 troops in Iraq during its first year in office. Military experts believe that under the present conditions on the ground, it would be difficult for the Pentagon to withdraw more than a brigade combat team (roughly 3,500 troops) a month. The security, logistics and transportation problems involved in moving the troops and equipment essentially rule out a quick withdrawal.

On the other hand, if McCain wins, he would not be able to order a significant surge in troop strength. The U.S. armed forces are stretched so thin that they have very little reserve capacity, and there is now a greater need for extra troops in Afghanistan. In fact, McCain would be under pressure from both the military and a presumably Democrat-controlled Congress to start slimming down the American presence in Iraq.

As a result, the American troop strength in Iraq would look very much the same next year regardless of which candidate becomes president.

And prospects for the longer term will be dictated more by events than by either candidate’s announced plans for Iraq. It is commonly said that truth is the first casualty of war. But the same is true for war plans. They usually get mangled by the reality on the ground.

If the power struggle among the various Iraqi factions burns itself out, and the Iraqi government pulls its socks up and establishes effective control over the country, then either President McCain or President Obama could declare victory followed by an orderly withdrawal. But if the present situation continues in Iraq - with a fragile central government, weak and unreliable security forces and rampant corruption - then McCain would be under irresistible pressure to withdraw from Iraq. It is hard to imagine that the American public, which has already written off Iraq as a botched enterprise, would be willing to pour more lives and treasure into a failing occupation.

Either way, the United States is bound to leave Iraq within a few years. The only question is when. It won’t happen overnight, but it certainly won’t take a hundred years.

One of the silliest debates in the American presidential campaigns is the one over whether the United States should talk to its enemies. Of course it should. The question the candidates should be asked is not whether they are ready to talk to America’s enemies, but when, how and under what circumstances such talks should take place.

The issue has become one of the central themes of Senator McCain’s criticism of Senator Obama. McCain raised it again this week, accusing Obama of naiveté for saying in a debate last year that he would meet without preconditions the leaders of Iran and other countries opposed to the United States.

Talking with their enemies is what countries should do when they are not shooting at them, and sometimes even when they are. It’s one of the main tools of foreign policy – or was until the Bush administration, flush with what it thought was victory in Iraq, decided that it did not need to talk to the other major player in the region, Iran. That was a big mistake.

Iran’s leaders were badly rattled when the United States and its allies toppled their neighbor, Saddam Hussein. They feared they would be the next victims of regime change. As we now know, the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. interests in Iran (we have not had diplomatic relations for almost three decades), informed the State Department that Iran was ready to settle all disputes with the United States. According to an authoritative account by a French expert, all issues would be on the table.

The Iranians were willing to stop giving material support to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and to pressure militant groups in the Palestinian territories to stop terrorist attacks on Israel, to take action against members of “Al Qaeda in Iraq” and to cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency on weapons of mass destruction. In return, the Iranians wanted the U.S. to lift sanctions on their country, to stop supporting Iranian dissidents and to give Iran access to Western technology.

It was the sort of offer that sounded hard to refuse, indeed almost too good to be true. You would have thought the Bush administration would at least have wanted to talk to the Iranians about it. Instead, it never responded to the offer because it was convinced the Iranian regime was about to collapse. Five years later, the Islamic regime is still in power, and Iran is our major foreign policy problem.

That doesn’t mean that there have been no communications with Iran in the meantime. There have been back-channel talks on Iraq and last year when the American troop surge seemed to be working, the United States began official but low-level talks with Iran on how to stabilize the Baghdad government.

But when it comes to the most important issue – Iran’s continuing program to enrich uranium in defiance of a UN ban – President Bush has preferred to let the Europeans and Russians do the negotiating, although it’s unlikely that a deal can be reached without American involvement. The administration’s position is that it will not talk with Iran about its nuclear program until Iran stops enriching uranium. In other words, it has to agree to the outcome of the talks before they can begin. Mr. Bush turned what should be the goal of the negotiation into a precondition for negotiation.

He has done much the same thing with the Palestinian group Hamas, by insisting the United States will not deal with Hamas unless it accepts a list of preconditions recognizing Israel’s right to live in peace and security. Hamas has been indicating its readiness to talk and declare a “truce” with Israel. One obvious way to find out whether their intentions are serious would be to invite Hamas leaders to the negotiating table.

Contrary to the assertions President Bush and Senator McCain, talking to your enemies does not imply approval of their policies. Talks do not have to begin at the highest level. Far better when they are thoroughly prepared by diplomats, who can clear away the underbrush and prepare the ground for the top leaders to reach a deal.

Sometimes there’s a breakthrough, as when President Carter brokered the historic agreement at Camp David between President Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Begin of Israel. Sometimes the talks fail, as I witnessed at the 1986 Reykjavik summit between President Reagan and Soviet Premier Gorbachev. The negotiations collapsed at the last minute, but the progress they made led to the conclusion a year later of a treaty eliminating intermediate and shorter-range nuclear missiles in Europe. You will never know whether talks will succeed unless you try.

And one more obvious point: talking with an adversary does not cost a trillion dollars or the lives of 4,000 American soldiers.

So why the argument between Senators McCain and Obama? I suspect there is less difference between them than meets the eye. Right now they are trying to score points. A hard-fought political campaign is not conducive to reasonable discussion of foreign policy choices and realities. You can’t put much detail or nuance on a bumper sticker.

I would be interested to know what you, the reader, think. Should America be talking to Iran, and at what level? What other potential adversaries should the U.S. be talking to?

From my expatriate window on the world in London and in my contacts with foreign leaders and opinion makers I have heard an amazing amount of feedback on this presidential campaign. It seems that every foreigner has an opinion about our election, and most wish they also had a vote. I haven't seen such a level of international interest in an American election since the days when John F. Kennedy charmed the world with his youth and charisma.

Much of the interest stems from the fact that Americans have been offered a remarkable choice between an African-American, a woman and a political species that is almost as rare in current American politics - a moderate Republican. The winner, whoever that may be, will be seen (rightly or wrongly) as a break with the past.

Most of the world is clearly happy that the next president will not be Mr. Bush. Most, but not all. There are exceptions. I recently heard President Karzai of Afghanistan praise Mr. Bush for pouring men and money into the risky effort to stabilize his fragile and wretchedly poor country. I have heard equally enthusiastic support for Mr. Bush from a leading opinion maker from Kosovo - a tiny nation just carved off from Serbia whose independence is shored up by 16,000 NATO troops. Mr. Bush is also popular in parts of formerly communist Eastern Europe, which is still wary of its former Russian masters. And he has support in India, to which he gave a free pass to develop its nuclear arsenal. 

But it's the exceptions that make the rule. The rest of the world - including the people of Pakistan - a country he has given billions to strengthen its army - can't wait to see Mr. Bush leave the White House. Even the Iraqis have mixed feelings about what Mr. Bush has done for (or to) their country.

And his standing among European people is even lower than it is among Americans.

It's not surprising that despite the skyrocketing price of oil and the looming recession, foreign policy has remained a major issue in this election campaign. Americans now have almost as many misgivings about the Bush foreign policy as foreigners do. It took them a while longer to see through the White House spin, but now even the President's former press secretary, Scott McClellan, has laid bare the reality of the emperor's new clothes. His tale of White House blunders and deceits in his new book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception", confirms what a majority of Americans already suspected.

Unfortunately, politics and foreign policy do not mix well in today's America, so we should expect cheap shots and low blows in this campaign rather than high-minded debates about America's international role. It used to be taken for granted in the early days of the Cold War that politics stop at the water's edge. Nowadays, you have the candidates arguing about whether America should talk with its enemies, as if that were debatable. Or about whether we should pull our troops out of Iraq in "six months" or "a hundred years", as if either option was reasonable. Even when the candidates know better, or had previously expressed contrary positions, they show a disappointing tendency to say what they now think will go down well with the electorate rather than what will serve America's interests well. That goes for Obama, as much as it does for Clinton and McCain.

So what are America's real interests in the post-Bush world that the next president will inherit? How should the United States deal with seemingly intractable Iran, with resurgent Russia, with rising China,  destabilizing Pakistan, the bottomless pits of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the other challenges to an America that seems overstretched and underloved.

I will be writing about these issues in the coming weeks from my perspective as a veteran foreign correspondent, and would welcome your own thoughts on any of them. Even though the candidates sometimes talk rubbish, there should be a place for honest debate about our country's foreign policy.

Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt
In the Middle East, what you see is not always what you get. I have been attending a World Economic Forum meeting here, a gathering of politicians, business leaders and opinion makers, which President Bush addressed as he passed through the Middle East this week.

The President expounded on his ideas of “true democracy” and called for economic reforms, political reform and greater rights for women, declaring that “freedom is a universal right, the Almighty’s gift to every man, woman and child in the world.” His audience, most of whom live in countries that clearly fall short of his standards, gave him polite applause and turned their attention to more pressing matters – the price of oil, what to do with their growing mountain of petrodollars, and the rumors of possible political deals between Middle Eastern countries that point to a shift in the balance of power in the region.

One thing was clear – Mr. Bush and his waning administration are seen as short timers whose influence is rapidly fading in the Middle East. As a result, regional leaders are beginning to fill the vacuum left by an American attention deficit and are looking for ways to pursue their own strategic interests, whether or not they coincide with America’s perceived interests. Washington now seems to be reacting to events in the Middle East, rather than trying to shape them.

Syria, Israel and Turkey are emerging as key regional players, and events this week suggest that they are seeking arrangements that would turn back the clock in Lebanon – currently the region’s most dangerous flashpoint – and perhaps even lead to a peace agreement between Israel and Syria.

But as I said, what you see in this part of the world is not necessarily what you get.

The simultaneous announcements in Damascus and Jerusalem that Turkey has been brokering negotiations between Syria and Israel over the return of the Israeli occupied Golan Heights to Syria came as no surprise to Middle East insiders. The two enemies have been talking on and off for years. What seemed interesting was the fact that Turkey – which is both Islamic and a full-fledged member of NATO – is carving out a major regional role for itself as American influence fades.
But even more interesting was the timing of the announcement. It coincided with a major political development in Lebanon. After a week of negotiations hosted by Qatar (another rising regional player) the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora ended a dangerous standoff in Lebanon by agreeing to give more power to his opponents, led by the powerful Hezbollah movement.

On the face of it, that sounds like a setback for Mr. Siniora, who has been Mr. Bush’s poster boy for the spread of democracy in the Middle East. Hezbollah, which controls a well-armed Shia militia, is backed by two of Washington’s favorite enemies – Iran and Syria. But some observers believe that far from being defeated, Mr. Siniora has set up Hezbollah for a fall. How could that be?

Here’s the scenario laid out by some experts in the region. The Lebanese government, by allowing Hezbollah to overplay its hand and dominate Lebanon, may give Syria an excuse to intervene in the country and restore some semblance of stability. The first thing that Syria would then do would be to rein in Hezbollah. Why would it do that?

The answer is that Syria uses Hezbollah as a card in a bigger game that involves Israel. The game then proceeds as follows.

1. Syria, which controlled Lebanon for years until the United States forced it to withdraw its forces in 2005, re-establishes its presence in Lebanon and insures that Hezbollah will not attempt future attacks against Israel or start launching rockets against the Jewish state as it did in 2006.
2. That makes Israel happy. The Israelis would rather see the wily Syrians on its northern border than trigger-happy Hezbollah.
3. Israel agrees to return the Golan Heights to Syria as part of a peace agreement, which means that Israel is now at peace with all its immediate neighbors. This is a bit of a stretch of course, but it’s not impossible in the foreseeable future.

Of course, this may not be what happens. In the Middle East, things rarely go as planned. But something along these lines seems to be in the works.

What does the Bush administration think about all this? It does not like the idea of the Syrians moving into Lebanon again. It does not like to see the Israelis making a deal with a Syrian government that supports terrorists and radicals. But the administration would probably acquiesce because it does not seem to have a better plan or at least one that it is willing to push hard enough to have a chance of succeeding.

As a leading businessman from one of the Gulf states put it at this conference, it may be time for the Arabs to stop blaming others for their problems and instead of waiting for Washington to solve them, to pull their socks up and do it themselves. Washington might not like the shape of the Middle East the regional players would arrange for themselves. It might not like to see Syria rewarded for bad behavior. But as far as the inhabitants of the region are concerned, what works … works, even if Uncle Sam does not agree.

The good news about President Bush’s latest trip to the Middle East is that a new war has not broken out in the region. Despite a fresh round of violence over the past few days, Lebanon has managed to pull back from the brink of another civil war. The bad news is that practically nothing else is going right in the region.

Lebanon remains a combustible mixture of clan and religious tensions that could explode at any moment. It has been without a president since last November because its many factions cannot reach a political agreement. And Israel anxiously watches its northern border, while the Syrian and Iranian backed Hezbollah militia – the strongest faction in Lebanon - rearms and positions its missile launchers for the possibility of another war with the Jewish State.

President Bush and the First Lady arriving in Israel

Things are not going well in Israel either. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is under police investigation, accused of receiving bribes from an American businessmen; most Israelis wish he would resign. President Bush insists that the peace process does not depend on one man, but Israeli negotiations with the Palestinians would be delayed if Mr. Olmert were forced to resign and new elections were called.

In any event, Mr. Bush’s goal of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian agreement by the end of this year is a pipe dream because he has done too little to promote the process.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly told Mr. Bush last month in Washington that when his negotiators heard the Israeli position, they thought Olmert and his foreign minister were playing a joke on them. That’s because the Israeli demands were so far from the guidelines set by President Clinton in the previous negotiations. According to the Palestinians, the Israelis want to keep not only their big settlements on the occupied West Bank, but also the entire Jordan Valley and all of Jerusalem, except for the Temple Mount (which Palestinian religious authorities already control), and several Palestinian neighborhoods on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem.

While the Bush administration pays lip service to the official American position that Israel must stop building and enlarging Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, it does nothing else to actually discourage the continuing encroachment of Jewish settlers on Palestinian land.

Akiva Eldar, an Israeli columnist whom I have quoted before (“Middle East Tremors” April 11, 2008) is worth quoting again. He wrote an editorial in the newspaper Haaretz this week suggesting that Mr. Bush “should stay home.” Eldar wrote: “Unless he has a rabbit in his hat, this will be the third time in the past half year that the U.S. president shows the Palestinians and the entire Arab world that they are wasting their time by trying to end the occupation by peaceful means.”

The fear, which Eldar raises and Israeli officials share, is that the Palestinian “moderates” under Mahmoud Abbas will give up trying to negotiate with Israel, abandon the goal of the two- state solution (Israeli and Palestinian states existing peacefully side by side), and return to the armed struggle and a demand for a single, bi-national state, which would mean the end of Israel as we know it.

Tony Blair, who is now an international envoy to the Middle East, tried to help Mr. Bush this week by putting some pressure on Isreal. The former British Prime Minister convinced the Omert government to dismantle or rearrange a small number of Israeli army roadblocks to make life a little easier for Palestinian residents of the West Bank. It was a small concession, but Israeli military officials were unhappy about it. The roadblocks, which Mr. Blair and many foreign observers consider to be a form of collective punishment, are designed to make it harder for Palestinian terrorists to slip into Israel.

If Mr. Bush really wants to open up the road to peace in the Middle East, it will take more than moving a few roadblocks. And it will take more than an international envoy with a limited role and no real power to talk the Israelis into making the risky and substantial concessions needed to reach a peace agreement. What it WILL take is an American president who can use the power of his office -- and muster his own courage and imagination -- to lead.