Rice's Mideast gamble: Is it too much, too late? Within mere months, she hopes to bridge the gulf between Arabs and Israelis to create a Palestinian state. We wish her luck.

It's one of the more remarkable turnarounds of the Bush team.

After seven years of letting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process drift, President Bush has moved the advancement of a Palestinian state to the top of his to-do list.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is staking her reputation, and much more, on holding an international conference before year's end at which a joint Israeli-Palestinian document will lay out a "concrete" basis for the new state. She's made clear she doesn't want this meeting - in Annapolis, Md. - to focus on generalities.

"We, frankly, have better things to do than invite people to Annapolis for a photo op," she said in Ramallah on Monday, standing beside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. She also said: "I hope everybody understands that [President Bush] has decided to make this one of the highest priorities of his time in office. He is absolutely serious about moving this issue forward and moving it as rapidly as possible to conclusion."

Whew! With the two sides miles apart and so little time left, this is a diplomatic gamble of mammoth proportions. It would take a near miracle for Israelis and Palestinians to bridge their huge gaps before the conference deadline. But a conference flop will boost radical Islamists in Gaza and the West Bank - and throughout the entire Middle East.

I must confess to being torn between admiration for Rice's chutzpah at taking on this issue at such a late date, and concern she has gotten in way over her head.

Back in 2002, President Bush called for two states - Israel and Palestine - side by side. But the administration let the peace process drift, focusing instead on Iraq. The administration's Iraq hawks were hostile to the peace process from the get-go; they claimed the road to peace in Jerusalem led through success in Baghdad.

Once that illusion died, the White House had a fresh chance to pick up the Arab-Israeli thread in 2004, when Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat died. But the White House failed to bolster the new President Abbas in 2005 when it might have made a crucial difference, choosing instead to back a unilateral Israeli pullout from Gaza. The predictable result: the Islamist party Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip.