The Arab world would love to believe that the so-called road map which President Bush has just sent to the Palestinian and Israeli authorities will result in a state for the Palestinians and peace for the Middle East. But Arabs are skeptical about its chances for two reasons. The first is that although drafted by the European Union, Russia and the UN as well as the US, it is Washington that is in the driving seat — and Arabs do not believe it has the will to drive it through. There have been too many Mideast peace initiatives in the past, all of them ending in failure. When push came to shove, the US was not prepared to make the all-important effort. When the going gets tough, Washington loses heart and interest.

The other problem is the forces at work in the region that will do everything to make sure that the road map gets nowhere. The map is only as good as its weakest points, and the weakest points are the militants on both sides whose uncompromising visions of total victory are incompatible with the compromises that are vital if there is to be a two-state solution. Those militants are Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and an Israeli hard right implacably opposed to the road map’s demands for the dismantling of Jewish settlements erected since 2001 and, among the Palestinians, those equally intransigent hard-liners in Hamas and Islamic Jihad who want no peace with Israel and who know exactly how to exploit the furious sense of impotence among ordinary Palestinians. No one can fail to notice that the incidence of suicide attacks rises whenever there is movement on the political front. The willing acceptance of martyrdom by young Palestinians is, without doubt, a genuine expression of rage against an otherwise unbeatable enemy — but such willingness to die has been used by calculating political activists out to prevent solutions they do not like.

But the Palestinians by and large are enthusiastic about the plan. It is Sharon who poses the far greater threat — and he knows how to turn up the pressure on the Palestinians so as to create a new cycle of violence and bitterness that could sweep away both the plan and the new Palestinian government. Already he is trying to move the goalposts with his statement that he has been sent the blueprint for “comments” on its wording. The road map is not up for comment. It is to be accepted in whole.

The challenge for Washington is to put the heat on the Israeli leader so that he accepts and implements it. That means doing something it has never done before: Standing up to the Israelis. Most Arabs do not believe that Bush will do it. They see the US presence in Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land as two sides of the same anti-Arab plot.

Bush has to deliver if the profound anti-Americanism that permeates the Arab world is to dissipate. The ball is in his court. He says he is determined to make the road map work. We shall see. If he can deliver, his image worldwide will be totally recast. On the plus side, he has already proved his determination with Iraq. The refusal to be deflected by the latest suicide bomb is also positive sign. So too is the agreement to terminate US military presence in Saudi Arabia. But on the minus side is Washington’s perennial inability to crack the whip at the Israelis. Given the record, it is not easy to be optimistic.