What all of this adds up to, in my view, is that he's giving his "doves" in the Administration one last opportunity to prove their correct to trust Arafat. He's giving Arafat one last opportunity to deal sincerely with Israel and work for a final peace. And he's giving the Arab nations one last opportunity to exert their influence on Arafat and the outlaw groups like Hamas and Hezbullah to cease and desist from violence, to recognize and normalize relations with Israel, and to usher in peace. The old paradigm is being given one last opportunity to produce a real peace.
I suspect that Bush realizes that, in all likelihood, this effort will fail. But then he can tell the world that it failed after every effort was made by the US to broker a lasting peace between the pertanent parties, but the pertanent parties don't want peace. And when the effort fails, Powell will have to abandon Arafat; the US can stop playing the game that the Arab world is a sincere partner for peace; we can stop pretending that Arafat is a partner for peace; we can condemn the Palestinians as murderous thugs; we can get 100% behind Israel, who is really our only friend in the region; we can move on to eliminate Saddam, and perhaps have Israel assist us openly in our war on terror. In short, Bush is giving the old way of doing things one last major chance. When that effort fails, we can stop being accommodating to Arab disingenuiousness, and we can get real in our war on terror.