In recent months a combination of remarkable developments—the military supremacy demonstrated in Afghanistan, Bush's vertiginous approval ratings, continued public support for the war and the relative lack of opposition overseas—has persuaded Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld to broaden the scope of military operations and planning. The idea isn't just to shut down al-Qaeda sanctuaries in places like the Philippines, Yemen and Georgia but also to target and remove dangerous regimes developing weapons of mass destruction that could be used against the U.S. or its allies. For proponents of this new, more assertive foreign policy—premised on the use of military power to destroy potential threats to U.S. security before they become all too real—Iraq is the most obvious place to start.

The road to Baghdad, though, leads through the nervous capitals of the Arab world. Saddam Hussein is widely reviled by neighboring regimes, but many worry that supporting a U.S.-led war to remove him while the Palestinian struggle continued to blaze would invite popular revolt in their own streets. The Administration's warnings to Iraq have rattled officials in the region. "There is basically this attitude, 'We can do anything,'" says an Arab diplomat. "I hope that will change." Last week Cheney tried to modify that perception through his self-effacing emollience. "Everybody thinks we're coming and saying, 'Let's whack Saddam,' but that's not how you do business here," a senior official accompanying Cheney said. "It's 'Here's why this is a threat. Here's why you're vulnerable.'"

U.S. officials say that leaders briefed by Cheney acknowledged that Saddam and his weapons are significant threats. But none seem ready to go to war to get rid of them. At a press conference after meeting with Cheney, Mubarak sought to slow any U.S. momentum toward war by suggesting that an Arab League effort to restart talks between the U.N. and Baghdad might get weapons inspectors back into Iraq—which could indefinitely forestall a U.S. attack. What has caught Administration officials flat-footed has been the Arab insistence on "linkage": making support for a U.S. campaign against Iraq contingent on a redoubled U.S. effort to secure a comprehensive Middle East peace deal. "We've been sending dispatches for a year telling them that the only thing the people care about here is the Palestinian question, but they've ignored it," says a U.S. official in Cairo. "There's not a single Egyptian who would be willing to say O.K. on Iraq unless they see a change in the way the U.S. deals with the Palestinians." Says a U.S. official in Amman: "All I know is if we invade Iraq, I'll be on the first evacuation plane out of here, because this place is going to explode."

The message may be getting through, if only because the Israeli-Palestinian problem has so plainly intruded on the Administration's still evolving plans for Iraq. Though the most boisterous hawks think the U.S. could take out Saddam without the participation of Arab states, military strategists told Time that even modest war strategies hinge on U.S. access to Arab bases and airspace. "All our options require some type of help from countries in the region," says a U.S. Central Command planner. The strategic logic is simple, says a civilian official in the Pentagon: "The worse things get between Israel and the Palestinians, the fewer options we have with Iraq."

The Iraq issue may ultimately have been what pulled the U.S. back into the Middle East fray, but there are other reasons for the U.S. to get involved. Since 1967, Washington has been the only effective mediator in the region. America's security, now more than ever, demands that the U.S. take steps toward bringing an end to the parlous conflict. Throughout the Muslim world, sympathy for the Palestinians and antagonism toward Israel continues to fuel extremist hatred of the U.S. Re-engagement in the peace process will not extinguish the sources of Muslim rage, but it might be a start. And it would allow Bush to show that the U.S. is prepared to tackle problems that don't bend to military solutions.

—Reported by Massimo Calabresi, John F. Dickerson, Mark Thompson and Douglas Waller/Washington; James Carney with Cheney; Matt Rees and Ahron Klein/Jerusalem; Jamil Hamad/Bethlehem; and Scott Macleod/Cairo

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