As he heads off to Israel to commemorate that nation's 60th anniversary, George W. Bush is nothing if not optimistic about the prospects for Middle East peace. Even as his negotiating partners are incapacitated by scandal and internal conflict, the lame duck President reiterated his January promise to produce an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement by the time he leaves office eight months from now.
Earlier this year during his first visit to the region, Bush assured the world that his better-late-than-never Annapolis peace process would result in a signed agreement during his presidency:

"I believe it's going to happen, that there will be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office...I'm on a timetable. I've got 12 months."

In an interview today with Al-Arabiya television, President Bush doubled-down on his earlier bet. Asked if an agreement can still be reached by the time he departs the White House, he repeated his pledge:

"Yes, I think so. That's what I'm aiming for, absolutely. We're pushing hard.''

President Bush might have wanted to first check in with his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. On April 29, Rice tried to reset expectations, telling an American Jewish audience that "we have a chance to reach the basic contours of a settlement by the end of the year." Bush himself briefly signaled a retreat during an April 24th meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, lowering his goal from a peace treaty, "I'm confident we can achieve the definition of a state." And during a press conference five days later, Bush remained ebullient about what then seemed to be more modest goals:

"I'm still hopeful we'll get an agreement by the end of my presidency. Condi is heading back out there. I've been in touch with President Abbas here in the Oval Office, and I talk to Prime Minister Olmert, and the attitude is good. People do understand the importance of getting a state defined."

Alas, President Bush's perpetually sunny disposition seems disconnected from events on the ground. Even amid the chaos and carnage in March as Israeli forces and Hamas forces battled in Gaza, Bush announced, "I'm still as optimistic as I was after Annapolis." Now, the prospects seem bleaker still, with Abbas still mired in Fatah's power struggle with Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert perhaps fatally weakened by the mushrooming corruption scandal enveloping his government. In an interview on Monday with the Israeli paper Ha'aretz, Bush made it clear he was undeterred:

Q: Mr. President, Prime Minister Olmert is under a corruption probe and is basically almost on the verge of being forced out from office. And his counterpart, Abu Abbas, is also very weak. So really the question is, do you still think that you can achieve peace until the end of 2008?
THE PRESIDENT: I do, yes.

Even though talks between Olmert and Abbas continue behind the scenes, the environment is not a promising one. As Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), recently put it:

"It's hard to remember a less auspicious time to pursue Arab-Israeli peacemaking than right now. The politics on the ground are absolutely miserable."

That won't dampen President Bush's enthusiasm in his latest mission to the region to press for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, halt the violence in Lebanon and, not insignificantly, "jawbone" the Saudis on the price of oil. After putting the road map for peace on the backburner for much of his presidency, Bush today reminded Al Arabiya, "I'm a peace man." As George W. Bush told Ha'aretz on Monday:

"And as I told you, I'm not running for the Nobel Peace Prize; I'm just trying to be a guy to use the influence of the United States to move the process along."