Bush finds himself more immersed in Mideast diplomacy than he'd hoped.(Chicago Tribune)

WASHINGTON--An early casualty of Bush administration foreign policy appears to be the new president's desire to keep Mideast unrest at arm's length.

With the tension between Israel and the Palestinians reaching a boiling point, and with two key moderate Arab leaders coming to Washington this week for talks, Bush finds himself more immersed in Mideast diplomacy than he had hoped.

"We're on the phone all the time to the leaders," Bush told reporters as the latest reports of violence involving ever-younger victims rolled in from the region last week. "Our voice is an important voice for bringing calm to the Middle East."

In meetings this week with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and next week with Jordan's King Abdullah II, Bush gets a chance to test his strategy of invoking the help of the moderate Arab states in calming things down in the region and at the same time getting them to sign on to his stern policy toward Iraq.

However, Egypt and Jordan are both calling for the administration to get involved and stay involved in the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. On Iraq, they appear ready to meet the United States halfway--they want to lift all sanctions now on Iraq but agree with Washington that Saddam Hussein's government must comply with United Nations weapons inspections.

"The United States cannot sit back and allow the two sides to struggle it out together," said Marwan Muasher, Jordan's ambassador to Washington.

Jordan and Egypt come to Washington deeply pessimistic, to the point of alarm, about the situation between Israel and the Palestinians.