Mahmoud Abbas: Pressing the Flesh for Peace

Axis of Moderation
Abbas meets with Lebanese President Saad Hariri in December 2009. The Bush Administration saw the region as locked in an epic conflict between a radical axis comprising Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hizballah and a moderate axis that included Israel, Abbas and U.S.-backed governments like Hariri's. But the influence of the radical axis in this schema continued to grow in the years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Israel's 2006 war with Hizballah, forcing the likes of Hariri to compromise with more-radical challengers — like Hizballah, in Hariri's case.

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