For how long will the US remain in mediation mode rather than acting to support an ally under attack?

Former President Bill Clinton now thinks Yasser Arafat stabbed him in the back. According to Newsweek, Clinton said he told the Palestinian leader, "I'm a colossal failure, and you made me one."

In this account Clinton described Arafat as an aging leader who relishes his own sense of victimhood and seems incapable of making a final peace deal.

Clinton's anger is understandable. After all, within the span of six months Arafat slapped the president of the United States at least four times. Not only did he show no flexibility at Camp David, he also rejected Clinton's own peace plan and twice broke his promise to the Americans to order a cease-fire.

Time after time last year Clinton and his chief aides expressed belief, even confidence, that Arafat was ready for compromise and willing to reach a comprehensive peace with Israel.

For example:

* January 20: Clinton said that Arafat and Barak would "reach a comprehensive peace in a reasonably short period of time."

* March 28: US negotiator Dennis Ross predicted, "We will see a permanent status agreement by September of this year."

* May 3: Ross stated, "What is very clear to me is that there is a readiness on each side to get down to business in a serious way."

* June 1: A senior official explained: "[Clinton] feels, based on his conversation on the phone yesterday with Chairman Arafat, that he, too, has a commitment also to try to seize the moment and end this conflict."

* July 5: Clinton said, "I think if we work hard we can get it done in a few days."

* July 11: Clinton, on leaving for the Camp David summit, remarked, "The parties have proven that peace is possible when they are determined to make it. In the process, they have passed the point of no return."

In citing these statements the intention is not to ridicule Clinton and his colleagues. They often expressed caution and talked of the difficulty of reaching an agreement. But they never expected to fail because Arafat was not at all ready to make a deal.

It should be added, however, that the claim that the US only went to the Camp David summit because Prime Minister Ehud Barak insisted on this step is quite inaccurate.

The Clinton administration had a clear analysis on why that step was necessary at the time based on its own investigations and exchanges with Arafat.

NEVERTHELESS, however, after the failure of Camp David and following the Palestinian decision to go to war with Israel, US faith in Arafat continued.

* October 5: Madeleine Al-bright proclaimed that Arafat and Barak had made clear their commitment "to find a way out of the tragic circumstances in which they are now caught up."

* October 10: US Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke stated, "In Paris this past week, both Prime Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat assured Secretary Albright of their commitment to end the violence and issued instructions to their commanders to reduce tension and eliminate confrontations."

* October 11: Asked if he was "disappointed by Arafat and puzzled by his attitude," Clinton responded, "This is not the time to be assessing that. This is a time to make a primary first commitment to end violence, to keep calm, to start the peace process again, and then they can establish some mechanism to evaluate what happened and why, and how to keep it from ever happening again."

Yet when would there be a time when it was as necessary to assess the reasons for the failures as well as Arafat's credibility and goals? Shouldn't his successors and others now hear what Clinton had concluded about the Palestinian leader?

What is most remarkable and important here is an amazing fact: The experience of dealing with Arafat in recent years has in no way been integrated into American policy.

Not only did Clinton refuse to criticize the Pales-tinians publicly or pressure them privately, the Bush Administration has also continued this strategy.

In short, despite the change in the White House, US officials are still claiming that if the Palestinians are merely offered more and more concessions - a settlement freeze, international observers, criticism of Israel - they will stop the violence and negotiate in good faith and with flexibility.

There are reasons for such a position, including the belief that this is the best way to end the violence and concern over US-Arab relations. It does not, however, take a diplomatic genius to understand that this strategy guarantees its own failure.

The following questions should be asked:

1. If refusing to compromise and continuing the violence yields so many benefits for them, why should the Palestinian leaders adopt a different course?

2. How can the US still give so much credibility to Arafat after its previous experiences?

3. Why is the US avoiding putting pressure on the Palestinian Authority, given its record?

4. For how long will the US remain in mediation mode rather than acting to support an ally under attack?

Clinton would be doing everyone a great service by publicly acknowledging his conclusion that Arafat cannot be trusted, and that his goal is not a peaceful compromise settlement of the conflict. Perhaps someone in the US government should also recognize that America has some obligation in this matter since Israel followed its advice in making so many concessions and taking so many risks.

The current policy will neither benefit US interests nor help Arafat or the Palestinians in the long run. In this case, as so often, William Shakespeare says it best. There could hardly be a better summing up of Arafat's refusal to seize the chance for peacefully creating a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem last year than these lines from the bard:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men/Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune/Omitted, all the voyage of their life/Is bound in shallows and in miseries."