There is intense debate in the Bush administration over policy direction, writes Denis Staunton in Washington
As President Bush addressed the United Nations in New York this week, policy analysts in Washington parsed his words in the light of an intense debate within the administration over the direction of Middle East policy.
The outcome of this debate, conducted at the highest levels of the State Department and the National Security Council, could determine the future of the Middle East peace process, the nuclear confrontation with Iran and the US presence in Iraq.
The debate became more public last Friday when Philip Zelikow, a senior adviser to secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, shocked a mainly neo-conservative audience at a Washington think-tank by linking Iran with the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Mr Zelikow said the US needs the help of European allies and moderate Arab states in confronting Iran.
"For the Arab moderates and for the Europeans some sense of progress and momentum on the Arab-Israeli dispute is just a sine qua non for their ability to co-operate actively with the United States on a lot of other things that we care about.
"We can rail against that belief, we can find it completely justifiable, but it's fact. That means an active policy on the Arab-Israeli dispute is an essential ingredient to forging a coalition that deals with the most dangerous problems."
Mr Zelikow went further, arguing that it was in Israel's interest to pursue a peace deal with the Palestinians so that a strong coalition could confront Iran.
"If Israel, for example, is especially worried about Iran, and sees it as an existential threat, then it's strongly in the interest of Israel to want the American-led coalition to work on an active policy that begins to normalise that situation. It's an essential glue that binds a lot of these problems together."
In the face of neo-conservative and Israeli protests, Dr Rice told Israel that Mr Zelikow's remarks did not represent a change in US policy and denied that sanctions against Iran would be conditional on progress in the peace process.
Elliot Abrams, Mr Bush's chief national security adviser on the Middle East, went so far as to relay a message to Jerusalem that he did not agree with Mr Zelikow's analysis.
In his New York speech, however, Mr Bush said he had directed Dr Rice "to lead a diplomatic effort to engage moderate leaders across the region to help the Palestinians reform their security services, and support Israeli and Palestinian leaders in their efforts to come together to resolve their differences".
Signs of US re-engagement in the Middle East peace process come as Washington has been playing down talk of attacking Iran and stressing its support for a diplomatic approach to resolving the nuclear stand-off.
European diplomats are confident that the US will join direct negotiations with Iran once Tehran suspends nuclear enrichment in return for a suspension of moves towards UN sanctions.
The White House this week authorised former secretary of state James Baker to meet a senior Iranian representative in his role as co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan committee authorised by Congress to report on the future of Iraq.
The 10-person group, which will report after the November elections, has already met Syrian officials to discuss Iraq's relationship with its neighbours.
With 60 experts examining economic, military, political and strategic issues affecting Iraq, the Iraq Study Group hopes to make unanimous recommendations for the country's future. The group will not discuss its findings until after November's mid-term elections but Mr Baker and his co-chair, former democratic congressman Lee Hamilton, have made no secret of their impatience with neo-conservative ambitions for the region.
Neo-conservative voices remain powerful within the administration, notably in the National Security Council and the Pentagon, and some are convinced that a military confrontation with Iran is inevitable. European diplomats involved in the negotiations with Iran believe they have been successful until now in persuading the US to stay committed to the diplomatic track but acknowledge that the next few months will be critical.
Opponents of military action could receive a boost if Democrats win control of the Senate or the House of Representatives in November. The party will almost certainly launch an investigation into the conduct of the Iraq war and possibly into the use of intelligence to make the case for war.
With faulty pre-war intelligence claims being dissected live on television every day, hawks within the administration could find it more difficult to persuade the American public of the case for a new military engagement in the Middle East.