On his last scheduled swing through Europe, President Bush has Iran and its nuclear weapons program high on his agenda. Following the president's first stop on his trip, the U.S.-European Union Summit in Slovenia, the two sides issued a joint declaration that the allies are, "ready to supplement sanctions with additional measures," if the Islamic Republic does not halt its uranium enrichment programs. Yesterday, in Germany, the president sought to shore up support for a new round of sanctions on Iran. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has reduced her country's trade with Iran, but is viewed as being lukewarm to additional sanctions.

The president is rushing to find a resolution to the Iranian nuclear standoff before his term expires in January. But the pace of negotiations with Iran and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana has been painstakingly slow. Solana is preparing to offer another incentives package to Iran in exchange for its abandonment of its nuclear activities. Incentives packages have not thus far convinced Iran to change its ways, and the Bush Administration is looking to get the Europeans to agree to "turn up the pressure," in the words of National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, in the likely event that the Iranians reject the offer.

Iran, North Korea, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remain sticky foreign policy problems for the Bush Administration as it heads into its final six months in office. Those countries and disputes represent international problem spots that have vexed many previous U.S. Administrations. However, the president and his national security team would very much like to leave the nation with some sense of direction on all three. But it is reliant on partners in Europe and elsewhere that have a much different view of the situations in each, and much longer time frames for getting a resolution. The Bush Administration may have to be satisfied to have given its best effort and hope that the next Administration chooses to pick up the ball and advance it further.

For John McCain, it was a favorite staple of the campaign trail:

"I think it is very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States."

This assertion was based on an interview that a Hamas spokesman, Ahmed Yousef, gave to ABC in which he said:

"Actually, we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will [win] the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle."

Well, unfortunately for McCain, Hamas has now officially un-endorsed Obama after hearing the candidate's speech at AIPAC. Among other things, Obama suggested the Jerusalem should remain the undivided capital of the Jewish state. That prompted the following rebuke from a Hamas official:

"The Democratic and Republican parties support totally the Israeli occupation at the expense of the interest and rights of Arabs and Palestinians. Hamas does not differentiate between teh two presidential candidates, Obama and McCain, because their policies regarding the Arab-Israel conflict are the same and are hostile to us, therefore we do have no preference and are not wishing for either of them to win."

I'm sure McCain will now amend his stump speech accordingly.

There's a "disconnect" between what Barack Obama has said in the past about Iran, and what he's saying now, John McCain backers today said, and the Democratic presidential contender wouldn't be the friend to Israel it needs if elected to the White House.

Going on the offensive against Obama for comments delivered today at the AIPAC conference in Washington, McCain soldiers said Obama is living in an "odd alternative reality" if he thinks U.S. troop presence in the Middle East has strengthened Iran, and they pounced on the idea that Obama considers the work being done by U.S. allies on Iran as "outsourcing" diplomacy.

"Senator Obama seems more interested in disparaging our allies and engaging in cowboy summitry" in dealing with unspecific leaders of Iran, McCain foreign policy and national security adviser Randy Scheunemann said in a conference call with reporters.

McCain's message: Obama doesn' t have enough experience or foreign policy knowledge to know that you can't just sit down with someone like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over coffee and bagels.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Vt., said he was "troubled" earlier this primary season when Obama compared Iran and other rogue and terrorist nation threats to the Soviet Union, thereby minimizing the current threat. But today, Obama said Iran represented a "grave threat."

This is the closest we've come to concession. She just said "It has been an honor to contest these primaries with him. It is an honor to call him my friend, and let me be very clear--I know Senator Obama will be a good friend to Israel."

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"I know Senator Obama understands what is at stake here."

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"We need a Democrat in the White House next January."

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"McCain will continue the failed policies of George Bush."

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Echoing Obama's speech last night, she adds, "We must seize this moment."

She is finally making the pivot and is signaling her support of Obama.

The Bush Administration has called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to step up its investigation into a possible secret Syrian nuclear program. The United States provided the United Nations' nuclear watchdog with information about three sites that it suspects could be linked to a Syrian nuclear program and expressed concern that Syria's program could be restarted in the wake of the Israeli raid on a suspected nuclear reactor in the northeastern Syrian desert last September.

CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden was uncharacteristically self-assured in public comments about the alleged Syrian nuclear program.

"Do not assume that Al Kibar [the destroyed reactor complex] exhausted our knowledge of Syrian efforts with regard to nuclear weapons. I am very comfortable -- certainly with Al Kibar and what was there, and what the intent was. It was the highest confidence level. And nothing since the attack last September has changed our mind. In fact, events since the attack give us even greater confidence as to what it was. We know what they did."

The IAEA has not yet been given permission by Syria to visit the al-Kibar site and has both bulldozed the remnants of the air strike and built a new building on the exact footprint of the destroyed one, according to John Pike of Global Security.org. Syria denies that it has a nuclear program. The U.S suspects it of working closely with North Korea to develop a secret nuclear capability.

Time for a reality check. After last week's big political dust-up between President Bush, Barack Obama and John McCain about whether talking to Hamas or Iran constituted "appeasement," comes word that Israel, the country who provided the presidential backdrop for the controversy, has itself started talking to Hamas. From Haaretz:

Participants at a recent inner cabinet meeting were listening to details of the Egyptian mediation initiative between Israel and Hamas on a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip recently, when a senior minister reportedly reminded those present that Israel does not negotiate, directly or indirectly, with Hamas. Shin Bet security service head Yuval Diskin interrupted, saying there was no other way to describe the talks.

A letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the details of which were revealed Friday, called for indirect and secret talks with Hamas to be recognized.

So, does this mean that Israel is guilty of Nazi-era-like appeasement? Perhaps McBush are preparing their condemnation for later in the day.

President Bush ended what turned out to be a controversial Middle East trip with a speech to the World Economic Forum on the Middle East, a gathering of Arab and world political and business leaders, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. In his speech, the president expressed his characteristic optimism about the potential of democratic reforms to bring peace to the long-troubled region. And he dispensed a helping of criticism for Arab governments, which he views as standing in the way of those reforms.

"Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail. America is deeply concerned about the plight of political prisoners in this region, as well as democratic activists who are intimidated or repressed, newspapers and civil society organizations that are shut down, and dissidents whose voices are stifled. The time has come for nations across the Middle East to abandon these practices, and treat their people with dignity and the respect they deserve. I call on all nations to release their prisoners of conscience, open up their political debate, and trust their people to chart their future."

The president's trip began with a visit to Israel, where his remarks to the Knesset, Israel's parliament, caused a week's worth of charges and counter-charges in the U.S. presidential race. Next he moved on to Saudi Arabia, where King Abdullah pointedly refused to increase Saudi oil production to help ease prices in the U.S., saying that he didn't see the need to produce more oil than world demand required. Yesterday's speech was meant to sum up the Bush Administration's vision for the future of the Middle East in what was likely the president's last visit to the region while in office.

The furor over remarks made by President Bush in front of Israel's parliament hit a fever pitch today, as the self-identified victim of the president's comments, Sen. Barack Obama, traded barbs with Sen. John McCain over the alleged insult to Obama's judgment and ability to protect the country as president. The Political Machine covered Obama's response to the White House and McCain here.

The McCain campaign released a statement late in the day accusing Sky News interviewer, and former Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration, Jamie Rubin, of lying about McCain's position with respect to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in an op-ed he penned for the Washington Post. McCain has been referencing comments made by a Hamas spokesman that the Iranian-backed terror group is rooting for an Obama victory in the presidential race. Titled "Hypocrisy on Hamas," Rubin's op-ed accuses McCain of changing his position on Hamas, based on one question and answer from an interview Rubin conducted with McCain in 2006.

[Rubin]: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"

McCain: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

Rubin says the exchange proves that McCain once espoused Obama's more nuanced position with respect to meeting with America's enemies. But, as the McCain campaign pointed out in its response, the impression readers would have gotten of McCain's position would have been radically different if Rubin had reported McCain's answer to his very next question.

President Bush delivered a speech today in front of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, as part of his visit to celebrate that nation's 60th anniversary. In his remarks, the president commented on critics of his Administration's approach toward dealing with America's and Israel's common enemies, telling the assembled lawmakers, "We also believe that nations have a right to defend themselves and that no nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to its destruction." The president followed that with some criticism of his own for those who do not share his view.

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

Those words brought howls of protest from Democrats on the campaign trail and on Capitol Hill. Sen. Barack Obama, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, interpreted the president's remarks as a thinly veiled shot at his campaign pledge to sit down with the leaders of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba without preconditions. The White House denies that the president was speaking about any one person, and he did not directly mention Sen. Obama, or the Democratic Party. That did not stop prominent Democrats from condemning the speech. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decried the remarks as "beneath the dignity of the [president's] office." That's advice the Obama campaign should have taken before reacting to the president.

President Bush arrived in Tel Aviv, Israel this morning for a two-day visit marking Israel's 60th anniversary as a nation. The president was welcomed at the airport by Israeli president Shimon Peres. While in the Middle East, the president will meet with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to continue his push for a comprehensive peace agreement before he leaves office. He will also meet with Arab allies n Saudi Arabia, and make a stop at Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt for talks with Egypt's, Jordan's, Lebanon's, and Afghanistan's leaders.

The president began his visit with high praise for Israel and the close friendship the two countries have always shared.

"We consider the Holy Land a very special place, and we consider the Israeli people our close friends

Our two nations both faced great challenges when they were founded. And our two nations have both relied on the same principles to help us succeed. We built strong democracies to protect the freedoms given to us by an almighty God. [...] and we built an enduring alliance to confront terrorists and tyrants."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert returned the compliments, saying, "America has been there at each and every important crossroad in the life of our young country and stood by us in times of hope and moments of crisis."