Next Task for Bush Team: Getting the Two Sides to Resume Negotiating
In a region where the twin pillars of American interests are the strategic protection of world energy supplies through alliances with important Arab states and, separately, the strategic partnership with Israel, Mr. Bush's action sent a crucial message to moderate Arab states. It said that he was willing to exert greater pressure on Mr. Sharon's government to ease the confrontation that threatens to destabilize the region.

"This is just a beginning, it is not a seminal event," said a longtime Middle East expert, Anthony H. Cordesman, a senior fellow here at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The United States has got to rebalance its policy consistently and over time," he said, otherwise "it creates even more distrust because no one knows how to deal with the Bush administration."

Mr. Bush's telephone diplomacy followed a sober warning on Thursday from Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia that a "deep rift" between the United States and the Arab and Muslim world was coming if the United States did not force an end to the tense military standoff. That raised the immediate question of how blunt was the diplomatic instrument that Mr. Bush brought into play to resolve the standoff in Ramallah.

Saudi officials said tonight that the crown prince was leaving the country satisfied that Mr. Bush was pushing more aggressively to end the violence and to create a new framework for negotiations that could be announced in the next few days.

"Other shoes will be dropping very soon," one official said. "I think we will see a total Israeli withdrawal from all Palestinian territories" and an end to the standoff at the Church of the Nativity, using the same concept of allowing Palestinian militants to enter the custody of American and British guards.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/29/international/middleeast/29DIPL.html?tntemail1