For Obama, West Asia’s problems are intertwined. When he makes his speech in Cairo tomorrow he’ll be expected to make his grand gesture to the Arab world — a watershed in US policy. His strategy is to offer the Arab world the end of settlement activity in the West Bank. In return, the Arab world must shift towards a total acceptance of Israel. The Palestinians, for their part, must begin with an end to incitement against Israel. And Obama appears to have set a rough deadline even for Iran.

Despite Netanyahu’s historic clash with Bill Clinton, the Israeli PM is a political opportunist. In supporting this US president who is a first in many ways, he might lose his government, but mass unprecedented political capital to take the centre ground away from his centrist rivals in Kadima. The last thing he wants to do right now is attack Iran, since that would merely delay, but not destroy, its nuclear programme.

sudeep.paul@expressindia.com