Sharon's recruiting call.

• Position: Comment - Ariel Sharon, Yasir Arafat and American foreign policy - Brief Article

The Bush Administration has paid dearly for its inept policy in the Middle East. During its first eight months in office, it disengaged from the region. Then, after September 11, it sided entirely with Ariel Sharon. This gave him a green light to go on the offensive after the unconscionable suicide bombings. George W. Bush and Colin Powell proceeded to muffle criticism of Sharon in the early days of the invasion. As a result, Israel escalated its attacks, and the Arab world predictably erupted.

Riots wracked Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, and Indonesia, and the followers of Osama bin Laden rejoiced. Irredentism is on the rise, with members of both sides staking spurious historical or religious claims to the whole land, and denying the other party any validity. Thus Sharon calls Palestinians "savages," and William Safire prays, "Next year in an undivided Jerusalem," while some Palestinians indulge the fifty-year fantasy of pushing Israel into the sea.

The Bush Administration modulated its response only after its Arab allies drove home the point that their very stability was at stake, and that if Washington had any hopes of getting them on board for the upcoming war against Iraq, then it needed to call for a halt to the invasion. Dick Cheney and Karl Rove also realized that rising oil prices, spiked by the conflict, would not help Republican chances in the fall of reclaiming the Senate and keeping the House.

The unprincipled factors behind the tardy "sea change" in U.S. policy will be obvious to many observers in the Middle East, who will no doubt distrust U.S. motivations in brokering a lasting peace.

And it's not an enviable task. The personal hatred that Sharon and Arafat display toward each other is one obstacle. And a far bigger one is the legacy of the most recent violence.

For most Israelis, the suicide bombings sent a message that many Palestinians will never be satisfied until Israel ceases to exist and that the militants are willing to use any means, however immoral, to attain this end.

For most Palestinians, the brutality of Sharon's invasion drove home the message that the Israeli government has no interest in peace, only in subjugation.

Could Sharon have done anything more humiliating to Yasser Arafat?

How must it have made Palestinians, and Arabs around the world, feel to see the leader of the Palestinian people holed up in two rooms as Israeli tanks and troops crashed through his compound?

How surreal was it to have Bush tell Arafat...