"One option has always been for us to disengage from this kind of direct catalytic role," said James Rubin of the US State Department after President Clinton's envoy, Mr Dennis Ross, ended his fourth unsuccessful meeting in four days with Mr Benjamin Netanyahu. "But it's not an option that the Secretary [of State Madeleine Albright] is advocating, or an option that we would like to see happen at all."
Mr Ross will brief the president later this week when Mr Clinton returns from his 12-day visit to Africa. There are already indications that Mr Ross will be suggesting "refinements" to the US plan for an Israeli withdrawal over 12 weeks from a further 13.1 per cent of the West Bank in return for Palestinian guarantees on security measures. There would also be a freeze on new Jewish settlements.
The status of the US plan is unclear. It is apparently based on proposals that Mr Netanyahu made in a series of telephone calls to President Clinton before he left for Africa. But the Israeli leader asked Mr Ross not to put forward the US plan formally during his visit while the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, pushed for publication as a way of putting pressure on the Israelis.
The Americans were not really expecting a breakthrough from the Ross mission; but they seem dismayed by the hardness of the Israeli position. Before he left the US, Mr Ross told the visiting Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Yitzhak Mordechai, that Mr Clinton would not make his final decision on the package until he came back from Africa.
It was also made clear to Mr Ross that the US plan as then formulated was unacceptable to Israel and that it would be unwise to try and force it on Mr Netanyahu, according to the Washington Post quoting an Israeli "with first-hand knowledge of the exchange".
The Iraq crisis brought home to the US Administration and to President Clinton in a personal way that the stalemate on the mid-east peace talks was damaging US prestige in the region. The Arab states whose help was being sought to re-build a coalition against President Saddam Hussein made it clear that the US was not leaning enough on Israel to make concessions.
The US has little choice but to re-activate the peace talks after a year of stalemate, and a situation where the Palestinians will only deal with the Israelis through US diplomats and security officials. President Clinton has made little secret of his frustration dealing with Mr Netanyahu, with whom he has a barely civil relationship.
The surprise election of Mr Netanyahu in 1995 caught the US by surprise as it was banking publicly on a Labour victory under Mr Shimon Peres. The peace process has never recovered.
The US is caught in a bind because of its deep involvement in the peace process. It cannot allow it to fail: this would mean that the US itself had failed and the alternative could plunge the Middle East into a crisis which would oblige Washington to intervene anyway.
Mr Rubin admitted the limitations of US diplomacy when he said: "Like in any serious peace negotiations, whether it is in Bosnia or in Northern Ireland or in any part of the world, at the end of the day, if the two sides aren't prepared to make the hard calls, the catalyst can only do so much."
But it is also an election (midterm Congressionals) year in the US. The Jewish lobby is already warning the White House not to force Israel into concessions which would threaten its security.
The US has no choice but to keep dragging the two sides nearer the peace table, holding out carrots and sometimes showing glimpses of sticks.