President Bush received renewed promises of bargaining for Mideast peace and a polite hearing for his warnings about Iran, and he collected major bling from his Arab hosts.
But neither Israel nor its Arab neighbors assured Bush that they will do what the United States asks on issues ranging from democratic reform and unauthorized Israeli housing expansion to high gas prices.
Bush talked about oil prices with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, and the White House said Wednesday Bush was hopeful that OPEC would vote an increase in oil output. Bush thinks Abdullah understands the pain Americans are suffering at the pump, White House press secretary Dana Perino said. Saudi Arabia's oil minister has said the kingdom, responsible for almost one-third of the cartel's total output, would raise oil production when the market justified it.
The Mideast has been an object of disappointment for U.S. presidents for decades, and Bush has long avoided full immersion into its ageless, seemingly insoluble fights. If he was frustrated by the lack of specific accomplishments for his first major Mideast visit, he hid it well.
"I'm feeling quite feisty here," Bush said Tuesday, pronouncing himself to be in "a great mood" as the closely watched trip drew to a close. A day earlier he had collected enormous gold medallions in Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, accepting the Saudi medal with a slight bow of the head and a double kiss for his host the king.
Bush was to head home Wednesday after a short stop in Egypt, one of only two Arab states to make peace with Israel but also the government he surely had in mind when he scolded Arab states Sunday for jailing dissidents and harassing political opponents.
Bush set low expectations for his eight-day visit to Israel, the West Bank and five Arab allies, as his hosts frequently did. He is widely unpopular in the Mideast apart from Israel, whose bidding many Arabs assume the United States will always do.
"I'm sure people view me as a war monger and I view myself as a peacemaker," Bush told ABC News in an interview broadcast Tuesday. "They view me as so pro-Israeli I can't be open-minded about Palestinian peace. ... You just have to fight through the stereotypes by actions."
Although pleased that Bush has given personal attention to peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians, Arab leaders are skeptical that either side is ready or willing to make concessions. Their publics and sometimes timid press are openly skeptical that Bush is the man for the peacemaker's job. Bush says he wants a signed deal before he leaves office in a year.
In comments echoed by other diplomats, Egypt's ambassador to Washington has said the Bush administration has only months to show real progress and will be judged harshly if peace talks fall apart again.
"You're the arbiter now," Ambassador Nabil Fahmy said last month. "If it fails, it's your failure."
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gave Bush one thing to applaud even before he arrived. Olmert and Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, held a face-to-face meeting to show momentum in the sluggish peace talks they began with Bush six weeks ago.
Notably, they never appeared together with Bush to reprise the triumphal group handshake that set the sunny tone at Bush's Annapolis, Md., peace conference. They used their public moments with Bush last week to score domestic political points.
Steven Cook, Mideast analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, called the trip mostly a wash. He predicted that any momentum in the talks will falter after Bush goes home.
"Neither Olmert nor Abu Mazen want to embarrass the president while he is in the region, thus the positive talks," Cook said.
Under Bush's auspices, Israel and the Palestinians have relaunched negotiations after seven years of violence. Talks stalled immediately over Israeli construction in disputed territory and Palestinian militant activity. Negotiators resumed Monday, as they told Bush they would do, and began taking on the most contentious issues in their bitter conflict.
It is hard to say whether Olmert gave Bush much else.
Ahead of the visit, a spokesman said Olmert would tell Bush that Israel would move quickly to dismantle unauthorized West Bank settlement outposts, a promise he has made before. Bush pressed him anew but got no specifics, such as a tineline for evacuating the encampments, while he was in Jerusalem.
On Wednesday, the day Bush left the region, Israeli forces evacuated two makeshift settlement outposts near Nablus in the West Bank. Police and army forces arrived at the first outpost, Harchivi, and the five Israelis there fled at the sight of the forces, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. At the second outpost, Shvut Ami, Israeli forces wrecked one of two concrete incomplete structures with a backhoe.
Meanwhile, a hawkish faction in Olmert's coalition pulled out of the government on Wednesday, weakening him at a time when he needs broad support to reach a peace deal. He still holds a slim majority in Parliament.
"Negotiations on the basis of land for peace is a fatal mistake," Avigdor Lieberman, head of the faction, told a news conference.
Bush is grateful for a strong Arab showing at Annapolis, and he said the peace question occupied much of his discussions with Abdullah, a key ally. None of the Arab states he visited has publicly followed up on Bush's call, in Jerusalem, to "reach out" to Israel.
Israel and the United States papered over their disagreement about a new U.S. intelligence assessment that Iran is not actively seeking a nuclear weapon and together lashed the clerical state as a threat to its neighbors and the world.
Bush didn't seem to win any converts among Arab states, who dislike or resent Iran's growing influence but fear warfare more. Gulf states and regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia have hosted Iran's hardline president and trade with the oil giant _ hardly the diplomatic and economic isolation that Bush urged.
"To the extent that containing Iran was the centerpiece of the trip, not much seems to have been accomplished," said James Dobbins, a Rand Corp. international security analyst. "The president's major address on that subject undoubtedly played better with American and Israeli listeners than his ostensible audience in the Arab Gulf."
Iran got nearly equal billing during the trip with the renewed Mideast peace talks.
The wealthy Arab dynasties showed Bush their modern sides, with displays of renewable energy research and meetings with women leaders and young business owners. But an Abu Dhabi auditorium was only two-thirds full when Bush delivered his mild rebuke to Arab political thuggery. Applause was light.
Closed-door discussions of Bush's "freedom agenda" sounded similarly restrained. "Heads nod," national security adviser Stephen Hadley said of the Persian Gulf leaders' response.
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