As George W. Bush's presidency draws to an end in terms of any meaningful actions that can be taken in foreign affairs from now until January, it is useful to review U.S. relations with Israel, one of America's most important allies, during his two terms. My own analysis is that a potentially very useful period was wasted for both countries, comparing what could have been achieved with what was not.

In general the two Bush terms were a period when America took the most uncritical attitude toward Israel that it has taken during any presidency since Israel's independence. The United States pressed Israel for nothing. Israel's most recent "concession" to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- agreement to remove only 50 of the some 580 barriers to Palestinian movement in the West Bank -- was a gesture of contempt, not action that could move the Middle East peace process forward.

The atmosphere of confidence and closeness that existed during the Bush years could have served as a crucial element in creating real progress toward a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Instead, with the end of the Clinton presidency, the latter part of which included very active involvement by President Bill Clinton himself in trying to move the two parties toward an agreement, the Middle East peace process dropped like a stone.

The obvious point is that progress was precluded by the Iraq war, movement toward which began to build visibly in 2002 although it had its genesis among Bush administration neo-conservatives in 2001.

At the onset it was estimated that the United States taking out Saddam Hussein was good for Israel. Saddam's Iraq was perhaps the best armed and among the most militant of Israel's enemies in the Middle East. There also was some thought that an America fully occupied with fighting a war in Iraq would not have the time nor the resources to push Israel and the Palestinians toward an agreement. This might have been considered by some to be a "plus" for Israel, although, in the event, it was not.

Most Americans and most Israelis share the same goal for Israel -- for the Jewish state to be able to live in peace and security among its neighbors. It is also generally considered -- and repeatedly stated by Mr. Bush and other world leaders -- that such a state of affairs can only be achieved when the Palestinians also have a state of their own in the former Palestine. In terms of justice, it is not logical to argue that the Jews have a right to a state but the Palestinians do not.

If the two-state solution is the goal, then the eight friendly Bush years will have been wasted, in no small part because of the Iraq war. In the meantime, apart from whatever the Iraq war has done to America's resources and spirit, Israel itself has certainly not prospered.

It has, in effect, lost two wars, against Hezbollah in Lebanon and against Hamas in Gaza. In both cases, all Israel's opponent had to do to "win" was to live on. Hezbollah survived massive Israeli assaults in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, even the use of U.S.-supplied cluster bombs.

A battered Hamas continues to hold out in Gaza. It won free democratic elections in the Palestinian territories in 2006, then defeated Fatah, the losing party in the elections, on the battlefield in 2007. The Israelis and the Americans have tried their best to strangle Hamas economically and have armed Fatah against it. Israel and the United States refuse to talk with Hamas, even though Hamas continues to hold the key to a settlement. Hamas certainly says and does ugly things, but Hamas is there and is clearly not prepared to walk off into the night, out of the game.

The Bush administration would point to its road-map initiative in 2002 and to the relaunch of the peace process in November of last year as evidence of seriousness, but it is perfectly clear that without the United States taking the lead and initiating important, high-level steps, the peace process will go nowhere.

Apart from the foregone opportunity to move the Israelis and Palestinians toward peace, another loss for Israel as well as for the United States as a result of the Iraq war is the strengthening of Iran. Iraq used to keep Iran in check. At one point, as recently as the 1980s, after the Iranian revolution, Israel and Iran enjoyed reasonable relations. Theirs was basically an alliance between a Shiite Persian Iran and a Jewish Israel against the Sunnis and Arabs in the Middle East.With Saddam gone, thanks to the United States, Iran is now out of check and is considered by Israel -- rightly or wrongly -- to be a threat to it rather than an ally or a neutral party. It is hard to imagine that the previous useful lines of communication that existed between the two countries are now completely burned.

Whatever the complexities of Middle Eastern relations at this time, the real tragedy of the last seven-plus years is that the United States and Israel did not take advantage of this period of exceptional cooperation to move forward toward what can in the long run be the only acceptable solution to the dilemma in the former Palestine -- the division of the land into two national states, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace.

A United States not preoccupied with the Iraq war could have provided the assurances, resources and security to both the Israelis and the Palestinians to help them reach that Promised Land. We didn't, and the damage inflicted on both sides by the other over the past eight years will now have to be part of a new starting point, from which to resume pursuit of what must again be a top foreign policy priority of the United States and the world in 2009.