Moving the process along

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Speaking in Jerusalem today, George Bush was uncharacteristically modest about his expectations for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process during the rest of his term:

“I’m not running for the Nobel Peace Prize. I’m just trying to be a guy to use the influence of the United States to move the process along,” Bush said.

Being that guy may force a president desperate for a foreign policy victory to back away from one of his administration’s central stated principles: the refusal to negotiate with regimes hostile to the U.S. and Israel. In a new web-exclusive argument for FP, journalist Laura Rozen explores the possibility of Bush overhauling his diplomatic posture in the Middle East this late in the game:

Though the Bush administration seems unlikely to do a “Nixon goes to China” with Iran at this late date, in some isolated cases it does appear to be at least flirting with a different approach. Recent weeks have seen numerous reports of indirect proximity talks and back-channel diplomacy between Israel and Syria, on the one hand, and between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas, on the other. In both cases, Washington’s role is curious, officially condemning calls for any sort of dialogue with Hamas while at the same time, seemingly tacitly endorsing Egypt’s role as a cease-fire broker between Israel and Hamas.

 Read the full piece here.