For all the power and prestige of the American presidency, chief executives can struggle to implement their policy agendas. Under the United States' constitutional separation of powers, Congress has the sole power to legislate, and since it does not operate along the strict party lines of Australian or British parliaments, presidents must frequently cajole, wheedle and arm-twist congressmen and women into supporting Bills sponsored by the White House. Even on the international stage, where presidents have a freer hand to act, failures occur far more often than successes.
Bill Clinton, generally acknowledged to be the most skilful and persuasive of modern presidents, says his failure to ''convince the Israelis and the Palestinians to make peace'' remains one of the biggest regrets. The others, incidentally, were his inability to reform health care and social security, and his lack of success in ''getting Osama bin Laden''.
Even at this early stage of his presidency, Barack Obama is discovering for himself that occupation of the Oval Office delivers few short cuts to implementing pet projects. Like Clinton, health-care reform and resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict figure prominently on Obama's agenda, and, like Clinton, he is finding the former an elusive goal. He's not had a chance yet to tackle the second, beyond a key speech at Cairo University in June, in which he signalled his Administration's intent to mend frayed relations with the Muslim and Arab worlds but reaffirmed America's strong and ''unbreakable'' bonds with Israel.
In the speech, Obama demonstrated his commitment to revive peace talks by balancing support for Israel with support for the Palestinians, saying the Palestinians' situation was ''intolerable'' and America would not turn back on the ''legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own''. ''That is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience and dedication that the task requires,'' the President said. ''The obligations that the parties have agreed to under the road map are clear. For peace to come, it is time for them and all of us to live up to our responsibilities.''
These responsibilities were, he said, for the Palestinians to abandon violence and for Israel to stop building settlements in the occupied lands as the construction ''violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace''. While low-level violence commonly takes place in the occupied territories, the frequency and intensity of such episodes has subsided in recent months. Terrorist attacks within Israel proper have declined markedly.
In spite of this, however, and in spite of Obama's declaration that ''the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements'', the Israeli Government approved this week the building of 455 new homes for settlers in East Jerusalem. Whether this was done as a sop to Israel's strong settler lobby in the knowledge that Israel could assuage American anger by announcing an official freeze on settlements is unclear, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has endangered Obama's peace initiatives even before they've left the station. Palestinian Authority spokesman Saeb Erekat says the decision ''nullifies any effect that a settlement freeze, when and if announced, will have''. And without a meaningful freeze, the authority has said it will not resume talks.
There is still hope that Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, can achieve a breakthrough before September 23 when the President is expected to use his address to the United Nations General Assembly to announce a three-way meeting between himself, Netanyahu and authority President Mahmoud Abbas but Israel's flagrant disregard of Obama's wishes, and its willingness to keep appropriating more of the occupied territories (with only vague promises of territorial restitution at a later date), do not augur well for a lasting settlement.
There are about 280,000 Israelis living in 121 ''officially recognised'' settlements in the occupied territories, and many of them claim Biblical entitlement to the land. The possibility that even one may be closed down to help cement a permanent peace deal seems remote. Those settlers have considerable political clout too, as Israel's parliamentary system gives plenty of oxygen to smaller political parties representing the interests of religious extremists. The last Israeli prime minister to seriously pursue peace with the Palestinians, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated by a right-wing religious Zionist in 1995, and the willingness of subsequent political leaders to confront extremist elements seems to have evaporated. That means Palestinians are likely to regard concessions from the Israelis with great suspicion. It's not a recipe for great hope.
Obama entitled his second book The Audacity of Hope, which underlines his supreme optimism, but even he may now be wondering if he has invested too much political capital in reviving the peace process.