Has Bush’s role in Mideast been reduced to rubble?

President Bush's trip this week to the Middle East is becoming, at least in policy terms, a repudiation of his core principles.

At Israel's behest, Egypt is negotiating with Hamas; Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is itching to negotiate with Syria; and U.S. allies in the Middle East are rushing Bush to break the current Israeli-Palestinian impasse.

These developments run counter to Bush's vision of the peace process, and his goal of securing an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before he leaves office in January 2009 may be slowly dissipating.

"The vision that Bush has set for Israeli-Palestinian peace is clearly failing," said Haim Malka, the deputy director of the Middle East program for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "The only significant negotiations going on are those being brokered by the Egyptians for a temporary truce in Gaza with Hamas."

On May 2, the Bush administration formally repudiated its longstanding policy of refusing to countenance negotiations with Hamas when it signed on to a statement by the quartet — the grouping of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations that guides the Mideast peace process. The statement approved of Egypt's outreach to Hamas, the terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip.

Should Egypt secure a truce, thereby ending Hamas' rocket attacks on Israel's south and retaliatory raids by Israel in Gaza, it would eclipse U.S.-sponsored talks between Israel and Palestinians, which themselves are on the verge of collapse.

"The domestic situation of the major players makes it difficult," said Allen Keiswetter, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs.

Olmert is battling criminal allegations that could fell his government, Bush is suffering from record-low approval ratings and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas can't control Hamas.

What's more, Keiswetter said, "Bush's own lame-duck status and the general lack of regard for his diplomacy has undermined his own influence."

Still, many Israelis are grateful for a U.S. president who set precedent by recognizing some West Bank Jewish settlement blocs as inevitably Israeli, who repudiated Palestinians' right of return to Israel and who refused to restrict Israel during its 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In return for this loyalty, the Israeli political leadership remains a redoubt of support for the Iraq War.

Despite Bush's record on Israel, the Jewish state already is positioning itself for the post-Bush era.

Israel is actively exploring peace overtures from Damascus after years of restraint due to the Bush administration's policy of isolating Syria for its meddling in Lebanon.

"The relations between us and Syria have to be re-examined," Olmert recently told Newsweek. "I don't mind that President Assad made an announcement that there will be negotiations, but the actual negotiations ought to be discussed quietly. In principle, we are ready for it if they are."

Olmert's comments on Syria were all the more remarkable for their timing: They came just as an armed insurgency by Hezbollah, which is closely allied with Syria and Iran, edged closer to toppling Lebanon's government and unraveling one of the signal successes of the Bush administration's policy of promoting democracy in the Middle East.

Israel offered an even more telling rebuke to Bush's Middle East policies with its refusal to attend a summit next week in Sharm el-Sheik. Bush will meet in the Egyptian resort with Abbas and Egyptian and Jordanian leaders, but without Olmert the summit will lack substance.