Clinton has achieved, however, the respect of both Yasser Arafat and Israeli moderates. Since Clinton became president the Palestinian leader has visited the White House a record-breaking dozen times. More significantly, in December 1998, Clinton became the first U.S. president to visit Arafat in his Gaza home.

The Palestinian people have learned to both like and trust Clinton. On the other hand, Clinton scored points with Israeli moderates when he led a delegation to Tel Aviv following Rabin's assassination. "Those who practice terror must not succeed," Clinton announced on a visit to Israel a few months after Rabin's death. "We must seek them out, and we will not let them kill the peace."

And, of course, Clinton remained vigilant in dealing with the Middle East's wild card, Saddam Hussein. In October 1994, the administration dispatched a full reserve of U.S. planes, ships and ground troops in response to renewed Iraqi military activities around the Kuwaiti border. Clinton deployed nearly 30,000 U.S. troops to the Gulf during the crisis in the name of preserving peace in the region. Clinton made it clear in his famous "dual commitment" speech to the World Jewish Congress in April 1995 that he was not going to let either Tehran or Baghdad destabilize the Middle East:

"[Iran and Iraq] harbor terrorists within their borders. They establish and support terrorist base camps in other lands. They hunger for nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction," he said. "Every day they put innocent civilians in danger and stir up discord among nations."

It is Clinton's full understanding of Israel's security needs, which he also demonstrated at the Wye, Md., summit in October 1998, that brought Barak to Camp David II. With Clinton leaving office in six months, Arafat ill with Parkinson's disease and Barak the leader of a fragile coalition government, this summit represents a unique window for a peace plan that would deal with the thorny issue of Jerusalem.

But it won't be easy. "God, it's hard," Clinton said Sunday in his first public assessment of the talks. "It's like nothing I've ever dealt with. All the negotiations with the Irish, all the stuff I've done with the Balkans at Dayton ... I'm more optimistic than I was when they first got here. We might make it -- I don't know."

Choosing Camp David as the meeting grounds is more akin to rubbing a ceramic Buddha's belly and praying for luck than a grandstand display of presidential hubris. After all, Carter was successful at Camp David. If Clinton fails, historians will note that when it came to tough negotiations the Arkansas politician just didn't have the right stuff. At one juncture in 1978, for example, the determined Carter physically blocked a doorway at Camp David and refused to let Begin leave the compound. When that moment of reckoning strikes Camp David II, one can only hope Clinton isn't out delivering an NAACP stump speech or concentrating on a backslapping rapport.

If he strikes the jackpot at Camp David II, his foreign policy stock will soar. Clinton trumped Carter by being the first Democratic president to gain reelection since FDR. But a Nobel Peace Prize might even give him status as a global statesman surpassing Carter's.

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