So, Who's Next?

(2 of 2)

Such an assault on Syria's client state Lebanon would enrage Damascus. To which the view in the Administration seems to be, Too bad. Even some officials who are privately dismissive of the neoconservative agenda seem prepared to yank the chain of Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom they consider a disappointing, feeble reformer who has failed to rein in his own security forces. U.S. intelligence believes Syria allowed men and materiel — including night-vision goggles — to cross its border and join Saddam's forces during the war. When asked last week what he would do if Saddam's weapons of mass destruction were spirited to Syria, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld replied in his vulpine way that the question would be addressed "if and when the point arrives." British sources seem convinced that some of Saddam's weapons scientists have fled to Syria, which is one reason why the British — who are careful not to say anything bad about Iran — are quite happy to pile on Damascus. Syria denies helping Iraq or its fleeing officials. It is the presence of Iraqi weapons expertise, says a senior British official, that makes "dealing with Syria so important." None of this implies that after the allied troops take Tikrit, they will smartly turn left and head to Damascus. Administration policy, insofar as there is one, holds that the demonstration of American power in Iraq will encourage Syria to forswear terrorism and any ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction. But the Syrian regime is on notice that if it does not start to change its policies, it may find that the U.S. is prepared to do the job for it.

Relative caution on Iran, relative hawkishness on Hizballah and Syria. Within the terms of the Administration's policy objectives, that sort of pecking order makes sense. But in the Middle East — and among Washington's closest allies — such a to-do list would have a gaping hole. The U.S. cannot meet its objective of building a safer world without determinedly addressing the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The suffering of Palestinians, beamed into televisions in homes all over the Middle East, is a recruiting sergeant for militant groups. "We are demanding that serious results be made on the Israel front, not just talk," Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher told TIME last week. "Radicalization has already started in the Arab world. We need to show the people that the U.S. does not only care about Iraq but other problems too."

Well, does it? Earlier this year, a senior Administration official said that reviving the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians would be "front and center" once Iraq was settled. When that happened, he said, the Administration would have to make some "tough choices," which presumably meant that it would apply pressure on the Israeli government. Since then, Bush has promised to publish a "road map" to peace once a new Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority has assembled his government. When it was written last year, the road map contemplated the establishment of an independent Palestine by 2005.

Is Bush serious? London thinks he is. "One thing that has been made clear to us privately in the last few weeks," says a senior British official, "is that Bush is absolutely committed not just to publishing the road map but to implementing it, despite the political pressures. He certainly gives us the impression that he isn't just saying it to shut us up." Skeptics will say the British have to say that; otherwise, their claim to have any influence in Washington would lie empty. But an American official who has been privately doubtful of the Administration's commitment to the peace process now echoes this view. "I'm convinced the President will lay his own political life on the line for it," says this official. "When I do the gut check, he's got it."

If Bush were to promote a lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy, many of the suspicions that attach to his policies would melt away. The power of the U.S. is too great and its influence too pervasive for it ever to be loved by all. But an America that tried to settle a dispute that has bedeviled the globe and caused deep human suffering for generations could not be dismissed as simply a descendant of the heartless empires of history — and might have a chance of lasting longer than most of them.